11Note: "Proud Mary" ("rolling on the river...") was written and originally performed by John Fogerty, with Creedence Clearwater Revival. Tina Turner covered the song, and what Liz says ("...nice and easy... nice and rough") is a paraphrase of what Tina Turner says in the beginning of her version.
I'd also like to explain a bit what happens with Liz's pregnancy - the babies grow too large to be safely delivered, and she has an emergency Caesarian section. This condition, called macrosomia, is a real reason why a C-section may be performed - and it is also called "big baby syndrome".
I've never given birth or been with someone giving birth, so I have only a vague idea of what goes on - and I have no clue what would happen if one of the babies were born deformed and the mother was apparently insane. So if someone has constructive criticism for the hospital scene, I will gladly take it!
Many thanks to AbeSapien99 for being my beta reader for this story.
Liz Sherman's voice: Heavy
As soon as my key is in the lock I hear the kids squealing on the other side of the door. It's late - what are they still doing awake? I open the door and they're on me, clinging to my legs, stumbling around in the oversized t-shirts they wear as pyjamas, falling over each other to be the one to lead me inside.
Katie's hand somehow hits Trevor's eye - no, that's not true, I saw her purposefully hit his face in order to get in front of him, although that was only after he pulled her tail - and he sits on the floor and starts bawling. I'm not really sure what to do. How do you judge between three-year-olds, when you just want to tell them to stop yelling so much because it's aggravating your headache?
God bless HB - he sticks his head out from the kitchen and says, "Hey, Trevor, didn't you have something to show Mama?"
Trevor forgets about crying instantly. With a big smile on his face, he runs off to the table and brings me a sheet of construction paper.
He presents it to me with the pride of a master craftsman, and says, "I drew us".
I have to say, he's getting pretty good. The scribbles look like people this time - at least, they're organized into groups that are vaguely people-shaped. In fact, I can even tell which one is me - it's the big one that doesn't look like he used up a whole red crayon drawing it. I smile at him and tell him that it's very good and it's going on the refrigerator right away, and he just beams.
Katie's clinging to the corner of my jacket.
"I made us too. With Play-doh. But Daddy said it would get yucky and crumbly. So it went in the box. And I did a picture, but it was bad, so I crumpled it."
I put on my best 'that is a grave injustice' face and tell her I'm sure it was a very good picture, and she should make another one to show me tomorrow. Now she looks happy too. All right, I've got this mothering thing down.
But now they're both talking at once, bringing me books and filling my arms with toys, and I'm wondering how I can get past them and just get to the kitchen so I can get some food...
HB to the rescue. He walks in from the kitchen and says, "Hey guys, we had a deal. You showed Mama your art. Now bed."
"No, no bed!" yells Trevor, and Katie says, "I wanna stay up!" at the same time. Then they both let loose with the most god-awful whine, "Dad-eeeeeee!" I swear, those kids have somehow discovered how to pitch their voices in a dissonant chord like a car horn. The sound grates up and down my spine.
HB is unfazed, though. He puts his hand to his ear like he's talking into a radio with an earpiece. "Who's that? Captain Whiny and Wonder Whiner? Thanks but no thanks. We've got the situation under control here - the kids are keeping their promises and going to bed with no fuss."
"Story first." pouts Katie. "Yeah, I wanna hear about Mac the Super-dog." adds Trevor.
"Okay, ooooone story", sighs HB, holding up his hands in a dramatic gesture of defeat, "but then bed. Right away. Mama and Daddy are sleepy." He picks up the kids, one giggling in each hand, and carries them off to their bedroom. "Spaghetti's on the stove" he calls over his shoulder to me.
I find the food and sit down to eat with a sigh of relief, stretching out my aching back and tucking up my feet. I have to say, HB's become a good cook. Necessity is the mother of... something something, but anyway. Living in institutions our whole lives, being brought meals on trays, neither one of us knew the first thing about cooking when we first quit the Bureau. It took a lot of experimentation to make something halfway edible, and I'm just happy that we figured out how to approximate the things we were used to eating before we started eating grass. Lucky Abe - apparently he can get by on what he catches himself in the ocean. Doesn't even have to deal with money, with holding a nine-to-whenever-they-decide-to-let-me-leave job.
I've finished eating and started doing the dishes when HB comes back from putting the kids to bed. "Leave those - I'll get them in the morning" he says softly. He puts his hand lightly on the small of my back, and I realize he's not really sleepy.
Once I said to him, "You want everyone to like you. Aren't I enough?" That was stupid of me. I had no idea what it meant to have to be somebody's "enough", to have to be their whole world. Even during the worst times at the Bureau, even when they locked him up like an animal, he always at least saw Agent Clay six times a day. They had that weird guy-thing type of friendship, all insults and punches in the arm, but I never realized how much it meant to him - how much he depended on it. Then Agent Clay died. Then Professor Bruttenholm died, and HB's world was pretty much cut in half. No wonder he went a little crazy in the year after that. For the longest time I thought it was because of me - kind of narcissistic of me. He thought that going public would get him new friends, new family - somebody to talk to as an equal, some insurance that he wouldn't be left all alone. He was wrong. We thought that leaving the B.P.R.D. would win us freedom. We were wrong.
Don't get me wrong here, HB loves the kids, and he takes good care of the house. But that's it now - four walls. If he gets himself seen, we'll have to move again. The Bureau is not happy with us, and we're not going to let ourselves get caught and punished. We won't submit to more of their control and insults. Plus there's the kids - we know, Abe knows, first-hand we all know, how the Bureau would treat them. The kinds of crazy experiments they think they have to do on people like us. We don't want that for our children.
So HB barely ever sees another adult. Never gets the chance to make new friends to replace the ones he's lost. All his needs for companionship rest on me now. Only me. So when he asks me for intimacy, how can I say no?
But I am sleepy. My limbs are heavy with fatigue, and I drag myself into our room. I try to pay attention to what he's saying, to what we're doing, but it's dark, and I'm horizontal, and my mind starts drifting...
We're standing together just outside our first house, in Ireland. We're watching Johann walk away from us. Just a few days after we all quit, Johann announced that he was going to make amends and return to the paranormal defense business, to Washington. He's the one who got us this house - he contacted his office so quickly, they never had time to freeze his bank account, and he paid the first month's rent for us. He says since he's authorized to spend large amounts of money on arcane items on a regular basis, they'll never guess where the funds went.
"I shall claim it as 'incorporate abode for the repose of souls in transition,'" he says in his clicky voice.
Red gives him a hard time about returning to work for The Man, but it's all in good fun. We thank Johann profusely, and he promises to keep our secret. "I shall endeavor to obfuscate!" he says, twirling a determined finger in the air.
As Red and I are watching Johann leave, I hear a low rumbling coming from Red's chest. "What's that you're doing?" I ask him playfully, and he starts to sing.
"Left a good job in the city / Working for The Man every night and day..."
I join in. "But I never lost one minute of sleepin' / worrying 'bout the way things might have been."
He slips seamlessly into a spot-on John Fogerty imitation. "Big wheel keep on toin'in / Prrroud Mary keep on boin'in."
"Rollin'! Rollin'! Rollin' on the river!"
We sing the rest of the verses, and I fold myself into his arms and say, "We did that nice... and easy. But you and me, we never... ever... do anything nice and easy. So I guess now we'll have to do it nice... and rough."
I didn't know that joke would turn prophetic. It wasn't too long after that that Johann contacted us, saying that the Bureau had stopped inviting us to return with full amnesty - now they wanted to arrest us for treason. We ran. We hid. We've been running and hiding ever since.
I wake up out of my memory into the present day. Red is talking to me, but I can't follow what he's saying. I nod and make some sound of agreement, and then I'm drifting off again...
Abe's hands are on my pregnant belly. He's telling me that the babies are healthy, and in their own small way, happy. "But I'm not a doctor, Liz. Even if you're eating properly and feeling well, there are still many precautions that have to be taken. There may still be complications, and you need to have a prearranged way to get emergency care".
HB and I thank him for his advice, and promptly forget all about it. Until I'm just about into the ninth month, and the things growing inside me have gotten so big and heavy that I can't move. There's no room inside me for me anymore. We're terrified. Red carries me to a hospital, leaves me on the sidewalk near the door, and makes an anonymous call.
I'm wheeled in with a great commotion, and examined, and then they're putting me under sedation...
"Liz?" HB says my name present-day, and I snap awake.
"You're awfully quiet. Is... is this okay? What do you want?"
"That's good," I murmur, "keep going." And I try to concentrate, I really do, but I can't stay awake...
... I come out of the sedation slowly, in a hospital bed, with a nurse watching me. There is a baby in her arms. She smiles thinly, but her face is drawn and pale. Something is clearly wrong. She hands the baby to me.
"Congratulations, Ms. Jones. You have a healthy son."
But I can't marvel at his tiny perfection, can't enjoy him until I know why she looks so worried.
"Two babies" I groan.
"Yes... you also have a daughter. We'll bring her to you very soon. But Ms. Jones, we will have to talk about your options. I'm sorry... your daughter was born with deformities."
Oh, no. Oh, God, no. "What is it? Where is she?"
"She's all right - we're running some tests now. She is healthy by all measures so far, but we will have to talk to you soon about the possibility of corrective surgery. Ms. Jones, your daughter has deformed feet. And a tail."
... It takes a moment for that to sink in. Then I'm laughing - I'm hysterical with relief. The nurse watches me in shock.
"Does she have little hoofsies?" I choke out through my laughter.
"Ms. Jones, please! I know this is hard news to take, but it's hardly the time for jokes! We'll need all the family information you can possibly give us, to rule out hereditary causes... and we'll need a full account of everywhere you went and everything you did during your pregnancy, to determine what teratogens you may have come in contact with..."
"No need. I know the reason. Don't you know that if a woman is thinking about a monster when she conceives, her children will be born looking like that monster?"
The nurse is not impressed by my charming Old World folklore. "Please, this is serious! Whatever caused your daughter's condition may have also come in contact with many other women - there may be other children at risk of the same condition."
"I hope not! If that's the case, I've got some butt-kicking to do!"
The nurse looks completely bewildered, and it all only makes me laugh harder. Until I hear what she says next.
"Try to calm down, please. This hospital collaborates with an organization that is well-equipped at diagnosing unusual medical conditions. We'll be contacting them shortly to have a look at your daughter."
Unusual... as in, paranormal? It must be. Some European paranormal defense organization - they'll contact the B.P.R.D.
I shout at her not to contact them. She's thoroughly frightened now, and takes my son out of my arms. I reach for her, but a searing pain shoots through my abdomen and I fall back onto the bed. Other nurses pour in through the door and hold me down as I struggle and scream.
Finally they inject a syringe through the IV still embedded in my arm and I'm knocked out again...
I surface from that drug feeling disoriented and frightened, though it takes me a few moments to remember why. There's a sound in my ears like a distant roaring, the sound of crashes and screams... it gets louder... wait a second, I'm definitely hearing screaming. And it's coming from this floor...
All at once, I know what's happening. I try to drag myself out of bed, but my belly hurts too much. I lie still and wait.
Sure enough, there's Red's goofy face peeking in the door. I have never been happier to see him.
"Good morning, Princess."
"G'morning."
"Babe, I hate to have to bother you so soon, but we're screwed."
"I know. They called an agency..."
"Yeah. I worked with them back in the 80s a few times- I recognized their logo on a truck pulling up. They're on their way. We gotta go. Grab the kids."
"I don't know where they are. They took them..."
He unhooks the IV from my arm and lifts me, so gently, out of the bed. "So let's ask for directions."
When we exit into the hall I see the nurse who handed me my son. I point at her. "That woman - there! She knows where they are!"
The poor woman looks scared out of her mind. Red says to her, as if he's really asking directions to the nearest ATM or something, "'Scuse me, ma'am. Can you help us find our kids?"
She stares at him, saucer-eyed, and stammers, "Are you Harold?" Red gives me a quizzical look. Oh man, he's going to love this.
"They asked me for my name," I explain, "so I gave them a name. Then they asked me for the father's name, and I didn't think fast enough, so I said HB. And they asked what the H and B stand for. So I told them Harold and Bruce."
He does love it. He gives a great big bark of laughter. "That's right! Harold Bruce, that's me, and I've come to pick up Harold Junior and Brucelina. So you gonna help us, or what?"
The nurse scurries down the hall, and we follow her. She motions us into a room filled with equipment, and we see a baby - our baby - inside an incubator. HB stares in amazement. "Look at that color..."
"All babies are born that color" I tell him.
"Really? They look a lot pinker on tv."
The nurse lifts out our child and holds it towards us - scared as she is, she won't hold a newborn at arm's length, but instead she cradles her and presents her gently to HB. He looks at me with a question in his eyes, and I let him set me down so he can take our child with both hands. Reverently, he holds her, peering into her face, stroking her clenched fists and tiny hooves, examining her little tail that's curled like a newly growing fern. In a proud voice, he says, "That's my boy."
"That's one's a girl." I correct him.
"Oh."
I turn to the nurse. "We're in a hurry - where's our son?"
She motions for us to follow her again. HB give me our daughter and lifts me up again. We walk down a couple of halls and see the nursery - dozens of babies. The nurse walks in between them, and with only the briefest hesitation to check the name tag, pulls one out and brings it to us. Yes, he's the one I held before.
HB looks at him for a moment and whispers, "Liz. Look. His forehead." I run a finger over the edge of my son's sleek black hair. There are two tiny bald spots there, easily missed by anyone not looking for them - circular, the size of the end of a pencil. He will have horns.
HB puts me down again so he can hold both children at once. He looks from one to the other, then looks at me with an expression of adoration and says, "Aw, Liz. You're my hero."
"We have to get out of here!" I remind him.
He tucks both of the babies into my arms and turns to the nurse. "We can't tell you how much this means, really. Thanks. Uh..." He patted frantically around his coat and found something in one of the pockets. "Here - have a cigar."
The nurse looks at the cigar in horror. I do too. "Red, has that thing been smoked halfway already?"
"I don't have any whole ones left" he says sheepishly, "but I can vouch for the quality of that one."
As I roll my eyes, he picks me up and walks out the door and towards a bank of windows we saw on the way over. When we're halfway to them, we hear footsteps running behind us. I feel HB tense like he's going to sprint for it, but it's only a single pair of footsteps, and then a voice calls out, "Breastfeed!"
It's the same nurse. I wish I could remember her name. She shouts after us, "Breastfeed as soon as you can! Do it whenever the babies want it! Exclusively for six months! Good luck!"
We thank her again, and then HB tries to open one of the windows. We're already leaving them with the bill and rooms full of startled patients, we don't want to cost them even more money - but it won't push out far enough. Looking apologetic, he breaks the window out with his stone fist.
He tells me to hold on tight, and we go out though the window. I'm still a bit dizzy from the anesthetics, and I feel weightless as he carries us through the dark city...
"Liz! Hey Liz, what's wrong?"
I wake up again. It's pitch-dark and I can't see his expression, but I can hear the edge in his voice.
"Nothing's wrong," I answer.
"You didn't answer just then. What's bothering you?"
I can't tell him what I'm thinking. I can't take an argument now. I can't take sulking tomorrow morning. I can't take long hours at work and his badgering for answers at home.
"Nothing's bothering me, honest. I'm just a little tired, that's all. That's the only reason I'm being kind of quiet. But I'm enjoying this, really. Come here..."
He hesitates. I reach for him, pull him towards me...
When did he get so heavy?
It's not his actual weight - although that has changed too. He wants to eat like he did back at the Bureau, but since now he never has to do anything more strenuous than pushing a vacuum or racing a 3-year-old, his monster-fighting muscle is melting into fat. But the man's got a hand made out of stone - a bit of a gut can't make that much difference. No, it's in the way he acts. He was so careful of me when we first left the Bureau, especially when I was sick with my pregnancy. So worried not to be a burden to me in any way. Now, even if we're just standing around, he leans on me - leans on me like a crutch. Leans into me like he wants a bit of his soul to fall into me, so he can leave the house with me and go walking into town...
I am walking through the town. Grocery store, again. Long shopping list, again. I run my eyes down it, hoping there's enough in my bank account to cover it, hoping desperately he won't ask me to go shopping again before my next paycheck comes through. Coupons. Shelves. Sales - I have to hit the sales. Cart. I dig my feet into the floor to get the cart rolling - too many cans this time. Up and down the aisles. And to the checkout.
The cashier eyes my overflowing cart. She eyes me - it hasn't been too many days since I was here last. Why can't I even buy food for my family without people staring at me like a freak?
She pulls produce out of the cart. Potato, potato, potato... how many potatoes will my family eat in a week? In a day? Can, can, can, can...
Something has changed in the present time, and I wake out of my dream. HB has moved - now he's lying with his back to me. I don't know whether he's finished, or just given up. I want to comfort him, but I'm so tired, I can't bring myself to move.
"I love you." I say. Or maybe I just thought about saying it. I can't tell. I'm already asleep.