Insightful, a future fic (Part 3C)

***[March x+4]***

The door into the bedroom was tightly latched so that no one was getting in, and the people inside were only getting out when they were done with what they were doing. “They’re going to assume we’re in here doing something bad, especially since…” Chase motioned towards the bag he’d brought to the house with him. “I thought we were doing this stealthily. I hand you what I have, you use it as you see fit.”

“And me coming in here alone with your stuff would be just as suspicious as me and you both being in here!” Nearly dropping the book she was holding, Amanda glared at Chase, before slicing her thumb along one page just to smear a few droplets of blood on it. “I’m telling you, something’s not right here, we’ve already gone over this part and I should, y’know, *know* by now, but I just don’t feel it!”

He twisted his mouth in thought as he looked between her worried face and the page of the book, which read off exactly what he figured it would—not from some odd intuition but from the fact that they had done this a month before. That time he had actually been acting on intuition, listening to a flurry of changes in his friend before suggesting that she might possibly have been pregnant again, and while she was upset that he had jumped there he was right. But now they were right back where they had been a month ago, although it was on her for calling this meeting. “See, look at that, nothing’s wrong. You’re just on edge, you seem to be expecting something to happen right away. Remember, you didn’t know about Bridgette until this point.”

“I get that, but still. At least then, once you told me I guess I could have just started feeling it, but this time I feel exactly the same as I did before I knew. Still sick, still miserable, and still not like I’m having a baby.” Amanda sighed, putting the book down and standing up off the edge of the bed. “Guess raising all this suspicion might have been pointless, huh?”

“Trust me, I’ve thought it was pointless sine you locked the door on me. If something was wrong, you would definitely know it.” Heading for the door, Chase paused when he heard childlike whispers on the other side, something that stopped when he unlocked the door. “If you’re over there trying to listen in on us, get away. It was nothing.”

Before he could open the door himself, someone on the other side did it, revealing one small, blonde child staring up at him. “Oh, this isn’t Mum,” Bridgette’s tiny voice said as her and Chase locked eyes, him tempted to step aside to unleash the child off on her mother. “’Scuse me, where is Mum?”

“Right here, my dear,” Amanda answered, pushing past Chase to get to her child, who she scooped up under one arm, much to her delight. “Now where’s your father, I need to have a word with him real quick.”

“He’s outside,” the person hiding behind the door replied, poking her head out from around it. “All the other grownups are.” Both Chase and Amanda’s attention was drawn to the speaker, and Justine grinned back at them, reveling in the focus. “I’m watchin’ the kiddos!”

When she came out fully from her hiding spot, two other children filed out with her, the boys hanging back to let her take the lead. “Oh gods, where’s everyone going if they’re outside? Did they take the younger kids with them?” Amanda looked around, expecting to see other children hiding in more obvious places. “Are any of you going to answer me?”

“Amanda, you’re asking a bunch of kids to answer a loaded question, don’t do that.” Crouching down to get on Justine’s level, Chase smiled at his daughter, who grinned back at him. “So, will you tell me what’s going on right now? Why are you the one who’s been tasked with watching the others?”

Shrugging, Justine turned her head to look towards the front door, not losing her grin as she did. “I’unno, got told to, I guess,” she said, before adding for clarity’s sake, “I think it was for fighting? Maybe? I saw big swords and—“

“You saw *what*?” Nearly dropping the child under her arm at the mention of weapons, Amanda could feel her whole body starting to shake in fear. Justine repeated the claim, the surrounding kids nodding along, and it only managed to fuel the fire of paranoia. “I really hope there was a call to arms just now and it’s not all those guys thinking they’re going to fight on their own.”

“Knowing your husband in specific, they might have decided to go out to the training field,” Chase reminded, standing back up to full height. “If it was a call to arms they would have pulled me to go with them and you know it. Healthy bodies need to be on the battlefield.”

“Well this makes things worse, I can’t exactly track them down and see what’s going on, you know the moment any of them see me they’ll send me home.” Looking towards Chase with pleading eyes, she was prepared to beg for him to do something, but before he even had a chance to notice her glance the front door to the house was opening, everyone filing back inside to the sight of the two adults surrounded by (and holding) the small children.

As the door closed with everyone on the right side of it, the house seemed to be quieter than it should possibly have been, all those people crammed inside without a word to be said. It was Angel who initially broke the silence, her hands full with one attempting-to-explore Aquila, who was quite old enough to be let down on her own but wasn’t for reasons of potential bullies amongst the older children. “Sorry we stepped out for a moment, arguments were breaking out and there was almost a fight to the death out in the street,” she said, a smile on her face that betrayed her words’ truth. “Or perhaps we just needed a few minutes outside, to give you two some space whenever you were finished up.”

“That makes sense, much better than thinking you all went out training.” A couple seconds passed, time during which Amanda was able to consider coming clean about what her and Chase had been doing, but when she caught her husband’s gaze towards her, his eyes expressing a curiosity he wasn’t bringing to words, she decided it was better to just leave it be. “The kids weren’t alone in here for too long, at any rate, if you weren’t gone long.”

“We put Justine in charge, they were all fine for a little while.” Kody had come close to his daughter, putting a hand on her head while she beamed at both her fathers. “I’ll assume that whatever had you two locked in a room together went over as well as it could, coming to its natural end without interruption?” he asked, looking towards Chase for an answer.

As Chase went through with vaguely answering, not entirely sure what to say, Amanda tried pulling her eyes away from where they were locked so that she could look like she was giving support in the explanation, but they were firmly in place and her mind was as well, so focused that she doesn’t hear what he said. With their eyes locked as they are, it’s easy for her to tell that Green is beginning to look concerned, his curiosity shifting to worry, and when he mouthed at her asking what was wrong, she realized that she was in trouble. If he could tell, from across the room, that she was starting to feel unwell as she stood there, who was to say that someone in between them wasn’t making assumption as to why she has started to go pale, getting disoriented and dizzy.

What she’d felt before wasn’t fear, it was merely another wave of whatever had been afflicting her for the past month, and it was something she wasn’t going to get over right away. Setting Bridgette back on the floor to let the child not be witness to her inevitably breaking down, she ducked back into the bedroom, throwing herself onto the bed to try and keep the room from spinning. The sounds of voices in the other room were too  much, too many things happening at once…

The last thing she remembered before forcing herself into a rough sleep was someone climbing onto the bed next to her, a hand brushing hair from her paled face, a reassuring whisper that she was going to be okay and things would get better.

It took three months for there to be an entire day where Amanda could go about her business without the overwhelming feeling of being sick. For every day in that time, she couldn’t bring herself to leave the house for too long, the worry of getting sick and dizzy while in public keeping her locked inside. So the first day she made it from morning to night without once succumbing to weakness, it was reason to celebrate, but at the same time it was paving the way for some questionable ideas.

Such as trying to go out the following morning, axe in hand and no idea of where she was going to go. “I hope you don’t think you’re heading out like this,” Green said as he stood between her and the door, his own sword in hand to hold her back. “Not right now, not in your condition.”

“My…condition?” Looking at herself, at how she looked the same as always despite all the circumstances, Amanda shook her head. “Come on, the only people that’ll know are the ones who’ve been told. I can go out and do whatever I want and no one’ll know I’m not *techincally* alone.”

“And if someone decides they’re going to run through you with a weapon, they’ll find out that it’s not only you they’re harming. You’re not going out without me there.” She made a move closer towards the door and he met her step for step, not budging on his stance.

It took small, tired footsteps behind them to break the deadlock. “Dad, Mum, what’s going on?” Bridgette’s little voice asked, her ignorant to them both holding weapons but noticing they were in fighting stances. As they looked down at her, she yawned, rubbing at her eyes to show how she was still tired. “Go to sleep, please!”

“You heard her, go to sleep,” Green teasingly repeated, setting his sword aside to use both hands to push Amanda back from the door. “Even if you’re feeling well enough to go out, when your child tells you something, you listen.”

“She’s telling both of us, but I don’t see you choosing to come as well.” In all honesty, it was a crushing defeat to not be allowed to go out as she wanted, after months of being sick, but it had been expected that she’d be stopped when she tried. So after they went back to bed, per Bridgette’s wishes, and after the girl deemed it acceptable for them to be awake, it was time to try again. Axe once again in hand, she made it as far as opening the front door before she was accosted with the same reminder that it wasn’t just her life she was playing with.

While she stood there, debating with herself if it was really worth the risk, Green had something to add to convince her to give it up. “If you go and you get hurt, you’re also ruining Jonah’s experience when he gets here within the next couple weeks. You wouldn’t do that to him, just like you shouldn’t do that to your own children.”

He was right, even if she hated to admit it, and as much as she wanted to do her own thing, she needed to be alive for her children and the children she sometimes cared for. There was always later to go out and do what she wanted, and after some discussion and a bit of arguing they came to the agreement that they’d find someone to watch Bridgette (and Jonah, if he was around when this happened) and go out together at least one last time before they had a newborn on their hands.

But the same scene kept unfolding over the next few days, her itch to get out making her ignore that they’d set an agreement up for this exact situation. She felt like she needed to get outside to explore and get some fighting in, and soon, but she had no idea that the time to do so was quickly passing her by. The morning came where she woke up feeling much like she had been ambushed overnight, rising from bed causing her excruciating pain, and she instantly regretted making that agreement. Her being in this much pain brought worry to them both, because at least when she’d been sick she was still capable of moving around the house, doing whatever she felt she needed to do for the family. Now she was barely able to walk from one room to the other without wanting to cry. Figuring this was a passing thing, jabs were made about how her body must have been throwing a fit over not getting what it had wanted, but when it didn’t seem to fade even slightly all day, it became more concerning than it had initially been.

She woke up the following morning to an empty bed and no way of checking to see where her husband might have been because she couldn’t bring herself to sit up, let alone stand. Her entire core was beyond sore, feeling like it was being torn apart even though there wasn’t any visual explanation for why. “Okay, little baby in there, why’re you doing this to me?” she asked, gingerly touching the supposed location of the source of the pain (which seemed awfully flat and rather high for being an issue caused by an unborn child). “Don’t you want me to love you?”

“Aw, she’s in here talking to it, how cute.” That was Chase speaking, which answered her initial question of where Green had gone; he must have gotten worried enough to go get someone without knowing that things hadn’t gotten better. “She’s crazy, but she’s a loving mother in the end.”

“I can hear you, you know,” she called back, and judging by how she got laughter in return, it was clear they didn’t mind. When Chase came into the room, Green following behind with Bridgette in his arms, they all saw how she was laying, hand on the part of her stomach that was hurting her most, and it was at that sight that Chase sprang into action. He didn’t have many tools with him, but he made do with what he had, a few books and a couple long scrolls. But even with what he had, he couldn’t come to a conclusion as to what was wrong.

Looking from his texts to his patient and back, he bluntly said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone having issues like this before with the child very much still alive.” That was a lot to take in, him being at a loss of experience simply because the child wasn’t dead. “The best guess I can make, without tearing you open to look, is that your body’s just struggling to accommodate to having a new child in there. After all, it’s long past time where you should be showing, poor thing must be trying to make room for itself in there whatever way it can.”

“Well, as long as the baby’s fine, I don’t think we should worry too much about this, right?” Green asked, giving Amanda a look that was trying to tell her that her jumping to worrisome conclusions, like always, wasn’t going to be necessary.

What Chase said echoed the point he was making, which made her want to swear off all fears of what was going on entirely. “It sucks that this is happening, but yes, as long as you are sure the baby hasn’t died, there’s not much to waste energy worrying about.”

“So baby’s ‘kay, yes?” Bridgette’s question was asked with a wavering voice, as she caught the serious tone that everyone was speaking with, as well as the general words that they were using. She wiggled her way out of her father’s arms and got onto the bed, sitting right next to her mother. “Don’t worry, Mum, it’s all ‘kay.”

“It’s all fine, yes, I guess, so don’t start crying over me or the baby,” Amanda said, grabbing hold of one of Bridgette’s hands to make sure that the girl was okay. “Hopefully this ends soon enough and we can all stop having reasons *to* worry about me and your sibling.”

“There’s really no reason to worry, you’ll get better in no time, but if you have any other pressing issues you are always welcome to come get me.” Beginning to pack up the limited things he’d brought with him, Chase thought for a moment before sighing and adding, “Unless you’re still not at ease right now, in which case we can always take some drastic measures to solve the issue.”

Looking between each other, both tempted to press further on this path as it was available to them, neither Amanda nor Green could bring themselves to ask what that might have entailed. He had stopped packing up to watch this, waiting with baited breath to see what they did; when he was met with silence he exhaled dramatically. “It wouldn’t involve anything harmful to mother or child, unless something was found to be very wrong, but it would involve trusting someone else with your care right now.”

“Oh, no way, I don’t trust anyone else with my life and the life of my baby,” Amanda blurted out, even though she knew deep down that it could have been for the best if she went along with the idea and got another person’s opinion. “They might kill me, I don’t have anything protecting me from them murdering me because I’m technically a criminal in their mind.”

“You’ve been a healer for how long? You know they won’t intentionally harm someone coming to them for help, especially when they’re looking for a particular brand of assistance.” Chase resumed packing his things, his manner of carrying himself drastically changed from before, as if he had a new swagger to himself. Why that was, he made clear before leaving: “Thank you so much for telling me I’m the only one you trust on this matter. I promise I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re fine.”

“Well, looks like we have exactly as many answers now as we did last night,” Green remarked, after he’d walked Chase out of the house and had come back into the bedroom, sitting down at his wife’s side when he returned. “Not to say that’s his fault, but how is it that something’s managed to go so wrong that even he can’t give us answers?”

Closing her eyes as she thought about all the possibilities for what could be happening, Amanda never actually gave a response. She was too enveloped in dark thoughts and worries to speak, afraid that opening her mouth and bringing any of her thoughts to life would make them come true. She couldn’t bear to talk about her real, genuine fear that she and the child were in danger out of her control, especially not when her impossibly bright elder child was right there next to her. Everyone needed to pretend that nothing was wrong, if not for their own sanity then at least to give Bridgette the illusion that everything was fine. Of course, she would have a hard time being convinced of such, because she *was* smart and she did know how her mother normally acted in comparison to how she now was.

Things were only going to get more complicated when Jonah got there if things didn’t change, and on the day when Kyoko brought him to their doorstep for his summer visit, it was only Green who greeted them. He let Jonah inside right away, but held the woman at the door for a long conversation that he made sure no one inside the house would hear. The moment the door closed on him, Jonah’s eyes lit up with the excitement of being in his other home, despite it not feeling as it had before, and he ran to find someone to happily greet.

He found them in the bedroom, daughter sitting at her mother’s side, and his bellowing yell to let them know he was there startled both of them. “O-oh, it’s my little fairy child!” Amanda happily exclaimed, sitting up the best she could while Bridgette climbed off the bed to hug the boy, who wrapped her up tightly in his arms in return. “I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

“Why not? It’s summer,” Jonah replied, sounding so grown up as he broke the hug he’d been so passionate about. “I get to be here.”

“Mum isn’t ‘kay, Jonah, ‘s why.” The answer was simple, and it was the only way Bridgette was going to be able to explain it, and her lack of details horrified Jonah. He jumped up onto the bed, climbing onto Amanda’s lap while Bridgette yelled for him to get off.

He wasn’t going to move anywhere, not when he was worried about the well-being of one of the women who loved him; even after he was pushed off of her lap he kept climbing back on, begging her to be okay and to stop feeling bad. She had to tell him that where he was sitting was directly impacting how she was feeling, and even that wasn’t enough to get him to stop climbing on her, so she had to tell him about the baby and how that was the actual issue at hand. “Where’s a baby?” he asked, confused as he looked around but only saw Bridgette. “Hey, she’s not a baby, that’s not nice.”

“I’m not talking about Bridgette, silly.” Amanda laughed, taking one of Jonah’s hands into her own and placing it on the last place she’d felt the baby moving. “I’m talking about a new one, a different one.”

He wasn’t buying her answer, but being held closely like he now was wasn’t something he was going to fight. “I don’t think this is a baby. You are lying.”

“Don’t call me a liar, I know what I’m talking about. There’s definitely a baby in there, it’s just…hiding from us. Hiding and making me hurt.” She let go of his hand yet he didn’t move it, him wanting to feel the so-called baby she was insisting was there. “You’ll be here a while, thing doesn’t move much. I get that you want proof, but you’ll have to take my word for it.”

“But I wanna feel it,” he protested, not wanting to move because of how much he loved the closeness. “C’mon baby, move!” He was leaning in closer, repeating his demand into the space underneath his hand, but nothing happened for as long as he tried.

The game only came to an end when the sound of footsteps in the house caught the attention of both kids in the room and sent them running to investigate. With the bedroom now to herself, Amanda let out a long sigh, placing her hand where she’d had Jonah’s resting and rubbing gently at the spot. “It’d be nice if you made this easier for us both,” she said, once again talking to someone not tangible. “I think it’s about time you stop being difficult and start letting me live my life like I want to.” Obvious there was no response, but getting the request out into the open brought a bit of peace to her mind. Everything was going to have to change eventually, and hopefully it was a change coming sooner rather than later.

The agreement that had been decided upon, given that there were some wildly uncontrollable variables at play, was that Kyoko would come get Jonah halfway through the summer, unless she received a letter saying that everything was fine. She wasn’t thrilled that it was looking like the kid’s trip would be shortened, but she had been threatened with the trip being cancelled altogether and no one wanted to upset him by having brought him all the way out for one single day.

He was never once told of the plan, and when it was clear that there was no changing in how Amanda was feeling overall, no letter was sent to Kyoko and she arrived mid-summer to pick him up. “But it’s not time,” he protested, while Kyoko and Green helped him pack up the things he’d brought with him, neither of them saying a word to him in response. “I don’t wanna go yet! You can’t make me!”

“Jonah, dear, it’s best if you do go home.” Voice shaking almost as hard as she was, Amanda was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, hands gripping the wall as she tried to make sure she was present for his last moments there that year. “I had really hoped you’d be able to stay but I…I…” Her next words caught in her throat, as she looked from the tearful boy to the two adults packing his belongings, and then to the root of their issues, the small, almost unreal bulge that had finally started to poke out of her now-bony frame. Looking at herself and how much she’d wasted away before finally being able to show what had made her so ill, she couldn’t bring herself to explain that this little life had ruined everything.

But just because she couldn’t say it didn’t mean that someone else would find that same issue in verbalizing it. “We need to be able to focus entirely on making sure *our* children are fine right now, and having two kids running around is a bit too much for myself and Amanda to handle.” Green had stopped packing as he spoke, so that he could have opened arms for when Jonah came running at him to try and resist being sent away. “Hush, don’t cry and don’t fight it, you’ll get to come back next year and you’ll stay the whole time.”

For a split second, the thought that his return the following year would come without her there crossed Amanda’s mind, but she tried moving past it quickly. She wasn’t going to die, she wasn’t going to miss out on things in the future; this was one small issue that would be moved past in a matter of months, and then she’d get back to normal and have a baby to tend to. Her heart hurt for Jonah, this boy who loved being with this family so much that he was distressed that he had to leave them early. She felt bad for Bridgette, losing her friends and somewhat-brother who was there for her to play with whenever she wanted companionship and neither of her parents could give it. And she didn’t want to admit it, but she hated that this was all her fault, that she was once again the person unwell and causing everything else around her to bend.

At the thought of bending, her knees buckled out from underneath her and she fell to the floor, crumpled up in her own weakness. The shouts and screams of concern were the sounds she drifted off to, and when she awoke it was on a bed that wasn’t her own, in a room she recognized but she couldn’t accurately remember where she recognized it from. “You need to be more mindful of your physical state,” she heard a voice she vaguely knew as her husband’s saying to her. “That should not have ever happened.”

“Don’t try talking back, I see you trying,” Chase said, and it was then that she realized that she was in this strange room alone with the two men. Even without his warning she wasn’t sure she would have been able to say anything, since her throat felt dry and scratchy, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in weeks. As slowly as she needed to, she brought a hand to the front of her throat, something Chase stopped by grabbing her wrist, his hand easily clamping around it. “Yes, I’m sure you’re in desperate need of something to eat or drink, anyone looking at you could tell you that.”

Her eyes went wide, scared of what he meant. “How could you have let this happen to yourself?” Green asked, putting audible words to the question present in her mind. “This whole time, you’ve been letting yourself wither away to nothing, and for what reason?”

“Hey now, back off of her for a moment. From the very start, she’s made it clear that this is not nearly as easy of a pregnancy as the first one, it’s quite possible that she hasn’t been able to take care of herself.” Now it was Chase saying what was on her mind, giving the best explanation on her behalf while she was unable to speak. “But now that we know how far she’s fallen, we can help her back to her feet.”

“You want me to force her to eat, don’t you?” Sighing, Green set his hand gently on Amanda’s arm, and between his touch and Chase’s she had no difficulty in realizing how thin her arms had gotten. “Listen, you know her almost as well as I do, if she doesn’t want to do something she won’t do it unless she’s forced and then has to.”

“I’d say that neither that nor starving to be alive for her children should be considered something she ‘has’ to do. I’m sure after this you’ll find no issue in getting her to eat.” Letting go of her wrist, Chase reached for a nearby tome, which he held up so that both Amanda and Green could see what was on the page. It was more diagrams, taking them back to the times he’d shown them countless similar diagrams in the comfort of their own home. She didn’t initially recognize the significance of what they were looking at, but he almost immediately did, his fingers wrapping around her arm tightly.

“What do you think it is doing this to her, if you’re showing us that?” he quietly asked, not taking Chase’s shrug as an answer. “You’re the one she trusts to take care of her, you need to be able to tell her what’s going on!”

Shrugging again as he set his book down, Chase replied, “I’m not a miracle worker. I’m doing all I can to help her but I’m not well-versed in all these potential complications beyond what the books say. Just focus on getting her to the physical state she should be in right now, even if it’s difficult.” He paused, before locking eyes with Amanda’s still-widened ones. “And, to prevent this from happening again, why don’t you go home and spend all day in bed?”

She still couldn’t find the voice to retort, but the seriousness in his face, and the concern in Green’s eyes when she looked to him, made her accept that what he’d said was best. He didn’t tell her anything further, but he did pull Green out of the room to presumably give him more warnings and advice on what to do, and the time she was alone in the room felt like an eternity to her tired mind. By then, she’d remembered where this room was familiar to her from, as it was the main bedroom in Kody and Chase’s house, and thinking about the time she’d spent in there coddling Justine brought a pang of longing for her girl that took her by surprise. All the talk about how she needed to live for Bridgette and the unborn child, yet she felt the first, strongest desire to live to get to see Justine again.

When the men came back into the room, Green quickly scooped her up into his arms to carry her home, with Chase providing a few last warnings before they left. His voice faded into nothingness in Amanda’s mind, her trying to focus less on what could go wrong as she attempted to find more things to live for. Leaving the room to hear the excited, yet worried, shriek of Bridgette’s voice was helpful, but even her happiness to see her mother in a slightly-better state wasn’t a deal maker; immediately the worry of how they all got to this house came to mind. On the walk home, with Kody as bodyguard for the family just in case anything were to happen, the story was recounted in its entirety, only making her feel worse for causing the whole issue by wanting to say that goodbye.

Upon making it home, she was more or less thrown into bed, without any care of if she wanted to be there or not. But try as she might, there was no way she was going to get herself out of the bed, much less the room. A few minutes passed with her there alone, before Green, with Bridgette on his heels, came in with something small for her to eat. “I’m not going to let you keep this up,” he said, as he helped her get the food into her mouth, despite her trying to do it on her own. “We have a family to take care of, you’re not leaving us because of your own stubbornness.”

That became a repetitive statement, made each time he had to come in and feed her much like a child—but even their child was capable of feeding herself, unlike her. There was always a desire to resist the meals as they came, her stomach churning at the smell and the taste nearly making her sick every time. But resistance wasn’t allowed under any circumstances, she knew, and even with her protests her husband always managed to get her to eat with a reminder that she couldn’t die for the sake of the family.

After a few weeks, the forcing was no longer necessary, her will to live finally managing to exist on its own. “Do you think you can bring me a bit extra when you bring my food later?” she asked one afternoon, propped up to sitting in the bed with Bridgette at the side, her hands clumsily working to loosely braid the girl’s hair. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I could eat enough to feed an army right now.”

“That’s a question I never thought I would hear you ask after what we’ve gone through,” he replied with a smile, happy to see that she was slowly coming back to life. “I’ll see what I can do for you tonight, but I feel this is cause for a bit of celebration.”

“We can celebrate by me eating as much as I want, that’s the only thing I want right now.” There were two thoughts on her mind at the moment, one that had been there through the whole ordeal and one that had just cropped up, those being the kids that she loved and now the food that she missed; with the new thought in mind she was hoping that soon she’d get to focus on the older thought as well. She had spent a lot of time with Bridgette during everything, but she missed her fairy boy whose visit would have still been going on if it were a normal summer, and she missed her Justine that she hadn’t seen once in months. With that in mind, she tacked on, “But if you really want to celebrate, maybe you can bring Kody, Chase, and Justine over…”

“Fair enough, I suppose I can try to put something together to fill that request.” Green’s smile as he replied was as genuine as it came, but Amanda knew that he would focus more on taking care of her physically than socially. And she was right, he never seemed to bring up the idea to them and she was hesitant to mention it to Chase whenever he’d come by to check on how much she’d healed. The last thing she needed was for him to scold her for wanting so many people visiting at once, not when he was impressed at how far she’d bounced back from the brink of death.

But sometimes things came as a surprise, and that was exactly what happened when Bridgette’s birthday rolled around and, in lieu of normal celebration or even any gifts, she had her closest friend come over for the day. “Hi, mama Manda,” Justine gently said as she followed her little, determined friend into the bedroom, both girls climbing onto the bed like they both belonged there. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, sweet girl.” How had it been half a year since they’d last been together? Justine had grown up so much in that time! “I’m so glad you’re here to spend today with us, it’s been so long since we got to be together like this.”

“Mum, my birthday, my friend,” Bridgette reminded, shaking her finger in her mother’s face. “Bu-u-ut, I can share.” She waited to see the relieved response, as well as hear Justine’s giggles, before she added, “Share with the baby. Not with you.”

“No, share me with her. I love your mom.” To prove her point, Justine nearly tackled Amanda in a hug, and the resulting laugher caused Bridgette to do the same, the combined force of both girls hitting her enough to make the bed creak underneath them. Between the laughter and the sounds of the bed, it would have normally been enough to catch the attention of anyone else in the house, but when no one came to investigate Amanda realized that, for the moment, she must have been alone there with the two girls. If anything were to happen, to herself but more importantly to them, there would be nothing she could do to fix it, unless…

Getting the girls off of her was one thing, but pulling herself to her feet unassisted for the first time since that mid-summer day where she’d collapsed was another, and it was easily one of the more difficult things she’d done. She may not have still been nothing more than skin and bones, but she was still missing all the muscle she’d gained in her years of fighting. The recovery from what had happened hadn’t started properly, and it wasn’t going to until that baby was in her arms, but even then as long as her focus was on how she will someday return to how she once was, there was nothing that could stop her from treating this just like she had treated recovering from her broken shoulders. Except, she realized as she carefully paced around the room, the girls watching her movements in awe, recovering from that hadn’t come after being bedridden for months. The only similarity at play was having to re-learn how to fight with an axe.

Just the thought of picking her weapon back up and getting back into fighting form made her grin, something the girls picked up on. “Mama Manda, what’s got you so happy?” Justine asked, while Bridgette’s face lit up just like her mother’s. “Is it something with us? The baby? What is it?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry yourself with,” she replied, coming back to the bedside to ruffle both girls’ hair. “I’m just far too excited about something I’ve been waiting way too long for.” It was a simple answer, but the truth was something she figured the girls wouldn’t fully grasp: her excitement was entirely because of the realization that the time to get back to fighting was nearly upon her. The baby could be born any day, and as soon as she could after that she would be back on the training field, back to what she’d once done so often.

It was only a matter of time until things would be back to a normal state, and that was just too exciting to ignore.

The knock came at the door in the middle of the night, startling the family inside awake faster than anything. “If that’s Chase coming back to check on me, he’s going to be very disappointed,” Amanda said, sitting up in bed as she watched Green pull himself up fully so he could see who was there. “Not like I’m exactly thrilled nothing’s happening either, but it is what it is.”

“Chase would let himself in at this time of night with that reason, whoever’s there has a different reason for being here.” He left and came back in under a minute, immediately starting to change into normal clothes upon his return. “It’s Kody, apparently something’s going on and he needs as many of us as he can get to try and stop it.”

“As many of…us? So that includes me, right?” There was a huge temptation to swing her legs over the side of the bed and get up to change as well, but because she’d still been playing up the “too sick to leave” card, she knew what she said came off as nothing more than a joke. The stern head-shake Green gave her solidified that interpretation, and so she sank back into her pillow, listening to him rustle around for a few moments before he set out, giving her the assurance that he wouldn’t be gone for long, and the reminder that she was now in charge of their child until he got back.

Almost if on cue, Bridgette jumped into her father’s spot in the bed and started making herself comfortable. “Go away now, Dad,” she said, waving him out of the room, and he took that as his signal to leave the house as well. Once she heard him close the front door, she loudly yawned and curled up right next to her mother. “Now back to sleep for us!”

Try as she might, Amanda couldn’t commit to getting back to sleep, her mind racing with every possibility of what could be happening to make a late-night visit necessary. She knew Chase had been gone for a few days—they’d honestly come to verbal blows about it before he left—but she didn’t know when he was supposed to come back. Was that what was happening, him coming back? But why, then, would that need to be stopped?

She shot up in bed, jolting her once-again sleeping daughter awake once more. “Mum, back to sleep!” she repeated, grabbing her mother’s hand and tugging on it, but there was nothing she was going to be able to do to stop Amanda. She slowly, carefully, got out of bed, her legs shaking underneath her not out of weakness but out of worry, her daughter saying over and over that she needed to go back to sleep.

“There’s no time to sleep when we have somewhere else to be right now.” By saying that, Amanda was effectively able to get Bridgette to quiet down, something she quickly reversed by telling her to go dress herself so they could leave. Asking a young child to do that would normally end in disaster, but the girl was so excited to be told to do that by her mother that she aimed to get things right. As she threw clothes here and there, her mother was busy trying to find not a particular outfit (although a change of clothes was necessary) but rather an old piece of cloth she’d stored away.

By the time Bridgette was changed into something that wasn’t her nightclothes, Amanda had found where the cloth had been hidden and was practicing wrapping it around herself like in the days of old. “Do you think you’ll be able to ride on my back for this?” she asked, finding her wrapping efforts to most likely not work for an older child like Bridgette. “I think we can get you tied onto my back easily, if you think it can work.”

Pursing her lips together as she thought, Bridgette gave a big nod after deciding her answer. “Yeah, Mum! Lemme on!” It took a bit of work and a lot of needing to steady herself as her child jumped on and got tied in place, and when all was said and done Amanda was sure it would work as long as she had something in her hands to counter-balance the weight strapped to her back. That was going to be a weapon, quite obviously, to keep them safe while they were out.

The midnight air was still as they left the house, silent to not raise suspicion of any neighbors who wouldn’t like the idea that the image of an armed warrior with child (in multiple senses) would raise. Trekking through the quiet town, mother and daughter were both looking around with wide eyes, identical expressions upon their faces. There was no sign of life anywhere, not even in open windows into darkened homes; this was the dead of night, foreign time for anyone to be awake. Them being out was dangerous beyond belief, yet they pressed on with the sheer desire to be of some help to whatever was going wrong.

At the first sign of anyone else being out at such an absurd hour, the first instinct was to approach them and see if they knew anything, but when Amanda saw they were not a friendly face but rather an armed guard, she knew any kind of approach would cause trouble. She ducked behind buildings to evade confrontation, and in taking one too many turns from the beaten path through town she found herself looking at a group gathered by one of the town’s side exits. “Mum, it’s mister Kody and Dad!” Bridgette called out, pointing towards the group with a shaking finger. “We need to go there!”

“Patience, if we just walk up to them they’re going to send us home without a word. We have to approach them smartly, so that they accept us.” That shut the girl up, even though she was still squirming excitedly against her mother’s back, and they began their approach in the same silence that their search had operated under.

Something, be it a breath or a loud step, gave them away just before they made it to the point that would have been considered safe. “For Naga’s sake, can we not have a gathering without intrusion?” Kody asked, not looking to see who he was referring to, although everyone else there had and were now staring at her in a silence heavier than the one of the night. “And why aren’t any of you telling the bastard to leave?”

“Because telling *her* to leave won’t do anything,” she replied, her voice starting to shake as the exhaustion of the search began to sink in. “I’m here to help you all, don’t send me home just because—“

“How long have you been able to walk on your own?” Green’s question cut her off, and as she tried to form an answer he grumbled out a few words under his breath before saying, “You know what, never mind that! Why do you think you’re able to do this, having been bedridden or not? You’re putting too many lives in danger by coming out like this!” He wasn’t even looking at her, he was focused entirely on Bridgette, her once excited eyes now cast downward in shame

“Yeah, okay, and Chase is putting lives in danger by being gone, but you’re not freaking out about that, are you?”

He took in a sharp breath, almost as if he was hurt by the accusation. “If I didn’t recognize the issues in him being gone, do you think I would have left home to be part of this? Now Kody gets one less man in his search party, because you’ve proven, once again, that you cannot be left alone for a single night without jumping to deadly ideas that you should never have given in to!”

“Except that I’m here because I need to know the one man I trust with my medical needs isn’t dead or dying! Me being part of this is for my health as much as it is for his! It’s the same reason I wanted to go with him when he left—I need to have him near in case something goes wrong!” Her chest felt tight, her anger starting to get the best of her.

But for every ounce of anger she felt, it was obvious that Green felt so, so much more. His normally neutral and calm demeanor was replaced with his slow, calculated breaths as he tried to keep himself from lashing out. “Nothing will go wrong if you stop thinking so negatively,” he said, voice almost unlike his usual one. “But it seems that your mind only works in the risky and dangerous, you can’t ever let anything be what it is, you always have to make it worse.”

“Not knowing where Chase is will make it worse!” Now she was breathing heavily, the anger getting to her more than normal in her vulnerable physical state. He recognized this and, even in his own anger, reached out to steady her as she’d started swaying on her feet, but she jerked away from his grasp, nearly knocking herself over. “I want to help find him, I’m tired of being the one sitting around doing nothing while everyone has to do things for me! You’re letting me do this!”

There wasn’t a single person there, aside from herself, who was on her side of this argument and she knew it. Even in the dark she could see everyone’s neutral-to-angry faces at her being there, none more prominent than her husband’s. “My apologies, Kody, but it seems I will be unable to help search for Chase after all. Hopefully he comes back safe and soon, but right now I need to take care of something else.”

“I don’t fault you, and I’ll send Chase by if or when we find him. Gods know you two need him.” That was the last thing said before Amanda was led home in silence, much like what she’d initially gone out in. The house wasn’t filled with talking when they returned, everyone changing back into nightclothes before going back to sleep, no one sure what morning would bring.

It wasn’t until afternoon that answers were given, which resulted in one tense morning where Green, now knowing that his wife was physically capable of much more than she had been letting on, insisted she do everything on her own. So when Chase came to the door to let them know of his return, she was the one expected to greet him, to let him know of how she was feeling, and to see what he had to say.

He stood on the step with a young boy who looked to be about the same age as Bridgette, his attention not on the woman on the other side of the door even though it was her he came to see. “This is the child who held my return up,” he explained, getting her to focus on the boy as well. “His name is Matt, and he is now my son and a brother for Justine. Hopefully you’ll learn to love him as much as her.”

“I’ll have to get to know him when I get the chance.” A pause, where she looked to Chase’s face and saw him still looking at Matt. “You know, after I’ve had this baby and it’s gotten some time to grow up a bit.”

Chase seemed surprised at what he heard, his attention shifting to giving Amanda a once-over. “Oh, you haven’t had it yet? Hm, here I was thinking I’d missed the whole ordeal. You know to get me when it’s time, right?”

“Yeah, of course! But, uh, shouldn’t it *be* time?” Now, she knew that the past many months had been stressful for her, taking a toll on her body and mind, but she’d tried counting down to when she should definitely have given birth and she was fairly certain that should have been right about then, give or take a day or two. “You said it’s forty weeks, but it’s that time and nothing’s happening and—“

“You’re overthinking it, the baby’ll come when it’s ready and you’ll do like you did last time and send Green to get me, then everything will be fine.” He gave her a smile, something that felt ingenuine to her but she wasn’t going to push him further. He was the one who knew what was up in terms of the book, she had to take what he said and accept it.

“He didn’t even come in to check on you?” Green asked when she’d closed the door, and she shrugged, still trying to process what had happened. “Huh, your sudden turnaround in being sick must have told him everything is fine. But you were so insistent than you needed him to help you right now.”

She couldn’t respond because she wasn’t sure how to, because the one thought she had was a negative one. There was a feeling of doubt beginning to overtake her, but based on what Chase had said there was nothing he was going to do for her unless there was a birth about to happen. And as it turned out, anything short of a panicked, active labor wasn’t going to be a concern to him. After a week of nothing, she sent for him and his response was that he was too busy with little Matt to come visit; another week and the response was the exact same. Even when she could feel small tremors and contractions, he didn’t jump to assistance because he didn’t think she was close enough to the moment of birth.

But when those “small” feelings turned into larger ones over the course of a drawn-out day, he was still hesitant to leave his home and his new son to come see what was going on. And when they proceeded to get worse, and he was told of this, he wasn’t convinced that he was needed right then. “You’ll know when she needs me,” he said, as he started closing his door in Green’s face. “Just wait until then, I thought you were more patient than this.”

“You try being stuck in a house with her when she’s screaming out every couple minutes! At least give this a second thought, she might really need you.” This was met with the door fully closing, leaving him to turn back and head home for the umpteenth time that day, which he hoped was going to be the last time he made that trip until he could sleep that night. But when the night was filled with more of her screaming, of her begging for any kind of relief from what was hurting her, he knew he wasn’t going to be sleeping much at all.

Bright and early, with an exhausted child under his arm because he was going to give her a chance to sleep somewhere else, he set out to get the help he knew his wife needed, at any cost. He was not going to go back alone, he told himself, and it didn’t matter what he had to do to get Chase to come with him, it was going to happen. Except when he got to the door and got someone to answer, it looked like Chase was already wide awake and ready to not be helpful in the slightest. “Kody’s out for a few hours, I’m not leaving my kids here to come check on your overdramatic spouse just to tell her she’s making this a bigger deal than it needs to be,” he told him upon opening the door, before noticing that Bridgette was under his arm, her eyes fluttering shut ever few moments before shooting back open. “Er, why’d you bring your child with you? Isn’t it a bit early for her to be up?”

“She hasn’t been able to sleep yet, and neither have I, because of what you keep insisting is Amanda being overdramatic. I don’t think she is, you shouldn’t think she is, and if you’re not going to come to her, I’ll just have to bring her to you.” He pushed Bridgette towards Chase, him inching back from the girl and threatening to close the door on them both. “No, let her in to get some sleep, if you’re here alone I won’t force you to follow me. Just expect to hear screaming, and soon.”

Rolling his eyes, Chase reached out to help grab Bridgette and took her into the house, expecting to still see Green at the door when he got back. But there was no one there at all, which he found odd but didn’t think too much of it. So maybe he was being used for some free babysitting, that was fair enough and he wasn’t going to complain about it. That was, until the piercing screams could be heard from down the street, getting closer with every passing moment. His heart sank down from his chest, and he scrambled to make sure none of the kids were bothered by the sound before heading to the door to intercept it.

“I-I didn’t think you were serious about this,” he admitted once he saw the couple at the door, the sounds of screaming almost deafening at the distance he was to the source. “Come in, we’ll see what’s going on and figure everything out…”

Going inside meant going to where the children were, which meant waking them up and having them get curious about what was going on. Despite everyone’s greatest attempts to keep them away, there was always at least one set of child eyes focused on what was happening, trying to see what they were doing to stop the screaming from being so loud. As it got worse, and more of a constant than it already had been, Chase determined that he still had no idea what was going on and needed to get someone else involved. By that point, there wasn’t any chance for Amanda to give a reminder that she didn’t trust anyone else with her care but him, because she didn’t have any moments where she wasn’t in some form of intense pain, and even though he knew how she felt on the matter Green wasn’t going to make her point for her. He wanted to save her, he wasn’t going to prevent doing that.

They couldn’t go anywhere until there was someone around to watch the children, and Chase hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Kody was out. That meant they had to wait for his return, which ended up being not so bad because he, upon approaching the house, heard the screams of what sounded like someone being murdered and rushed back, allowing for them to leave with only telling him that he was now in charge of three children for the foreseeable future. He didn’t argue, only begging for them to hurry to solve things, as when he’d been on his return home he’d seen people outside trying to figure out what was making such a distracting and loud noise.

Chase’s idea of where to go for answers was where he knew other castle healers, people he trusted as allies, would be available. They were hesitant as to accept why Chase was bringing them people who were seen as enemies of their cause, but his insistence that they help his friends out was enough to get them to break out all of their midwifery skills and try to set things straight. But there wasn’t a simple answer to what was wrong, as had been known since so early on, and when it was clear that whatever was wrong was preventing this child from being born, drastic measures had to be taken, measures that had been alluded to, once upon a time so long ago when figuring out what was initially wrong was the main goal.

The last thing Amanda remembered before the healers forcibly put her to sleep was the pain that was rendering her completely helpless, and the first thing she realized when her eyes came back open was that she wasn’t in nearly as much pain anymore. It didn’t feel like she’d been asleep for very long, but judging by how it was entirely different healers surrounding her (with the exception of Chase, who was sitting at the foot of the bed with a book in hand), it must have been several hours, if not longer. She went to tap him with her foot, but trying to move her leg caused the pain to return, although it was a different kind of pain, still in her abdomen but not as sharp and not as intense.

He was alerted to her being awake soon after that by one of the other healers, and he closed his book and hopped off the bed, walking to her side with a smile. “I don’t think you want the first thing you hear me say now being that I was right all along, but I was right all along.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, and he hung his head. “I was wrong about you overreacting about everything, but I was right that this could and would happen.”

Healers around them were bustling around, trying to accomplish something without any words in their direction, and she was trying to piece together what was going on. “What exactly happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” she squeaked out, her voice strained because of all that screaming she’d done for so long. “Nothing went wrong, did it?”

“Everything went wrong from the start, I’m afraid, and me ignoring your calls for help made it worse in the end. Not…like you want me to be saying this now.” He chuckled, offering her a hand to try and get her sitting up. “Once they figured out that the baby wasn’t coming out without help, I was able to figure out what had happened and haven’t been able to forgive myself for not catching it sooner.”

“What do you mean, not without help?” She was taking his hand as they talked, her body hurting as she got up to sitting, but when she tried to get to stand he shook his head and stopped her. “I want to get up. I need to find my family.”

“They’ll be here soon enough, don’t worry. We’ve been waiting for you to get up for a while now, actually. Now do you want me to finish explaining, or do you want to keep trying to hurt yourself further?” Obviously she wanted to know what had happened, so she resisted trying to stand and waited for him to keep talking. “Okay, do you remember back when I gave you all those warnings about what could happen? Well, something along those lines happened. Poor baby didn’t have a chance to grow normal, somehow implanting outside where it should have.”’

“So it’s dead, isn’t it? All this suffering and I don’t even have a baby to show for it!” Feeling like she was about to cry, Amanda sniffled, before seeing that Chase was shaking his head at her. “Wait, what? You’re telling me it didn’t have a chance to grow normal and it *didn’t* die?”

He shook his head once more, before looking around to see an approaching healer, who he waved over. “No, which is a miracle in itself, honestly. Definitely inherited your stubbornness with how hard that fight to live was. Now get ready to meet the child, it’s about time you’ve gotten to.” As her face lit up with the news that her baby wasn’t dead, the healer had come to Chase’s side, but rather than handing him what she had wrapped up in her arms, she set it gently on Amanda’s now-waiting arms before stepping back, giving a small bow before disappearing back into the bustle of the area.

The child was asleep, which was fine because it was probably for the best that their first experience with their mother wasn’t defined by her almost tearful staring. “O-oh gods, this baby’s so tiny,” she choked out, leaning down to kiss the baby on the forehead. “Nothing’s wrong with them, even after everything, right?”

Freezing where he stood, Chase grimaced as he thought about how to answer the question posed. “I wish I could say nothing’s wrong with her, but I’m afraid that’s not quite the case. Except before you start guilting yourself over it, or choose to blame me for it, this isn’t something that the whole situation caused. The only thing you can accuse your faulty biology or my carelessness for is her size, but…” He sighed, stepping back. “You’ll see what I’m talking about when she wakes up, I’m sure. It’s something that Green and I have discussed a bit already, he can talk you through it.”

“He’s already met her?” Looking up to see Chase still backing up, Amanda saw him nod before she was looking back down at the baby, who had given a tiny noise of starting to wake up. “So if he has, that means Bridgette has, doesn’t it? That means she knows her baby sister better than I do, and I’m sure she loves her already.”

“Actually, it was decided that she wouldn’t meet her until you did, so this is going to be a moment of multiple first meetings.” He’d stopped backing up, but when he saw someone come into his line of sight he gave a firm, almost final nod. “I’ll be stepping out, don’t want to intrude on this family bonding moment, but I’ll be back soon enough. Even though we’re in a building of other healers, I’ve made sure I’m the one in charge of your care, so hold me to my word on being back.”

He walked away at the same time that Green, with Bridgette hanging onto his back for dear life, came up to the side of the bed, both of them not saying anything but simple hellos to get Amanda’s attention. “I can’t believe this all ended up okay,” she said as she looked at them, holding the baby up a bit higher. “Look, she’s actually real and not completely broken like I thought she would be after all that!”

“You see, about that…” Green was watching what was happening, and he knew that it was a matter of moments before something occurred that would make her rethink what she’d just said. It happened slowly, the baby opening one eye right before the other, and when that first eye had opened Amanda had started squealing, excited that she was going to get to properly meet her baby. But he knew what was coming once that second eye opened, and he braced himself for what was coming. Her squeals stopped at once, followed by confused gasps for air as words were attempted to be found, and that was quickly followed by her looking at him for an explanation. “It seems Chase didn’t tell you, did he?”

She shook her head, looking down at the baby with a confused glance. “I mean, he told me something was wrong with her, but I don’t quite get what this is. Are her eyes two different colors? I thought when that happens, they’re blue and brown. Not blue and…almost white.”

He had to restrain the happy girl on his back as she tried reaching for her younger sister while she was so close, which didn’t make having to give this revelation any easier. “No one’s sure why it’s like that, but it seems she might be blind in that eye and—“

“Our child’s *blind* in one eye? As in, can’t see anything out of it?” She hadn’t meant to be rude by cutting him off, but she made him have to collect himself, tell her that yes, that was what he was referring to, and then break into how they’d come to that conclusion, which was a lot of things that Amanda didn’t want to hear after what she’d had to go through. Sure, the kid was alive and wasn’t horribly ruined by what had happened to her, but she was way below average in size and only had vision in one eye, she wasn’t going to be able to do much in life with only having one functioning eye. But with that disability in mind, them naming her was rather easy. Why go with some proper name when a joke about how she wouldn’t be able to *aim* worth a damn could be made?

Considering having to raise Bridgette one of the biggest challenges of their life was a mistake, but they hadn’t known then that they’d have to raise a half-blind child when they’d determined that. But really, everything about their new addition Aimee had been a challenge from the start, so it was no surprise it was only going to be uphill from there.

*end*

***the ending?? uhhhh***