Participants:
Scene Title | New Life Alone |
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Synopsis | Kaylee's newborn son is only a few hours old when she takes him to visit his father's grave. |
Date | August 04, 2011 |
In Dreams
Early morning birds sing in the trees, it's habit to look up at them and wonder who is behind those shining black orbs. She shouldn't be on her feet yet, she knows this…. but she feels she can't wait. All through her pregnancy she's visited his grave. Talked to him. Every new thing that he wasn't there for… from the first fluttering kick, to when she first really felt that tiny mind. There was nothing that would keep her from it. Even to the very end of it all. Sharing it with everyone else wasn't the same, except for Hannah. Her adopted daughter was different, she was family. In the end it still it wasn't Joseph, wasn’t the father.
Even through she ached to the very core, Kaylee Anne Sumter made her way out of the castle's infirmary, with the tiny newborn in her arms. No doubt there won't be much time til they come to look for her, since it hasn't even been twenty four hours since her baby enter the world screaming with protest, red faced and very unhappy after so many long hours of hard labor. They'll know where to find her, but she'll take her chances.
Kaylee's steps bring her straight to the marker with Joseph's name scrawled in ink, fresh since the last rainstorm. It doesn't take the effort it will when she's older to picture him with the country boy smile that she fell in love with, at this point it’s only been a few months. "Hi handsome." Her voices wavers ever so slightly, even as she smiles down at the grave. “I have something to show you.” It takes effort to ease herself to the ground and not simply drop, her legs shivering with fatigue. The muscles worn out from labor. Her knees sink into the damp earth, resting her rump on the heels of her feet.
Settled, she turns her attention to the baby in her arms, wrapped in a beautiful blanket that Delia had surprised her with just before the birth. Wisps of pale fine hair shift in the soft breeze that rustles through the trees. Already the tears fill Kaylee's eyes, yet there is pride in her smile as looks back at the marker. "Look." She shifts the tiny figure in her arms, moving the blanket away from the still red face, as if to make it easier for her dead husband to see "Look who's finally here and just perfect." The smile is bright, not just with tears, as the tiny face scrunches up in a yawn. "They told me he's a perfectly healthy little boy. You know how I worried about that." She had. Without any way to test or really watch herself properly, there was no real way to know how things were going.
"That's right. We had a boy. Meet your son, Eli. I named him just like we talked about… Just before…" He died. The words trail off as she suddenly feels like she's been hit hard. The emotions steal her breath away, like a fist to the stomach. Choking back any other words as the world becomes a watery blur. It takes her a moment before she can talk again, voice thick with tears. "I wish you were here to see him. To be able hold him." Her arms tighten gently around the baby, the tiny representation of their love.
"It was so hard." The words are quiet, her gaze dropping to the tiny baby. Tiny fists move, stretching wrinkled fingers wide, before curling again. "It hurt a lot and seemed to just drag on forever. I didn’t think it would ever end. I'm a little old for babies, it wasn't easy and they started to worry. All I could think of was I wanted you there." Her voice catches and she can't help but laugh, a sad thing that ends up coming out as a half sob. "Things always seemed easier with you there." She wanted him there holding her hand and supporting her through it. "They were not…not so scary."
Instead, she consoles herself some by placing her finger where Eli's tiny digits wrap around it lightly when they close again. Kaylee smiles a bit sheepishly, as she murmurs, "Abby and the other ladies will probably give me a talking to about being out here so soon. I just…" The emotions threaten to overwhelm her again, so she forces herself to take a deep breath. When she exhales it comes out shaky. "I just needed you." Or as close as she could get to it, a hand moving to rest on the cool surface of the grave marker as if she could touch him through it. A connection.
Her body starts to protest her position, so Kaylee is forced to sit with her weight resting on her one hip. Her body already telling her she should be laying down. The movement jostles Eli enough that he gives a soft grunt of protest and his mouth starting the searching for food. Like any woman, Kaylee is smitten with her own child, it makes her smile. Darker thoughts make it fade, sobering her. She brushes a gentle knuckle against his soft cheek, his head turning towards the touch. "I'm scared, Jo." She admits to the man long dead. "Starting this new life alone. Raising Eli and Hannah without you. " She glaces at the marker, brows furrowed in her concern. "Hannah's so angry about what happened. I'm scared for her."
Kaylee sighs softly, looking out into the greenery and over the river she can see just beyond dark leaves. "Honestly, I don't blame her. There are times I want to feel the same way, but… I know better. Have too." She smiles a little, sadly. "Besides, to forgive is divine, right?" Her eyes still shine, when her eyes fall on their son again.
Would he be like his father? A gentler person then me?
She hopes so. "I miss you so much," she whispers to the ghost of her husband, resting her cheek against the warm head of wispy blond hair of her son, a part of the man she lost. "We all do." closeness invokes a frustrated grunt of protest from the bundle in her arms, followed by the start of a cry. The forced sound all babies make before they learn to really use those vocal cords.
It echos through the islands grave yard. A brand new life in a place where so many ended. Maybe a little hope in the land of lost dreams?
"Shhh, my little man." Kaylee coos to the tiny child, rocking him gently. Her voice rises, singing barely above a whisper, words filled with love and sorrow. "Lullaby. Oh Lullaby. Baby, hush that little cry…"
Kaylee's cheeks and lashes are damp when she wakes to the sounds of a baby crying, the sound echoing through the corridors of Grand Central. It makes her heart skip with fear and she sits up suddenly, "Eli…" But as soon as the name passes her lips, things seem so wrong. It only takes a moment longer for reality to seep in. Confirmed by a glance to the sleeping form beside her. She relaxes, shoulders slump and her eyes close in a sort of relief. It was just the cries of the child of one of the refugees.
A part of her swears she can feel still feel the ache of childbirth. The dampness of the ground under her and the warmth of Eli in her arms. The softness of his skin where her cheek rested lightly against his head.
It was only a dream.
Silence falls as the child is quieted by a parent, the absence of sound almost as hard to take as the knowledge that she won't ever really know that tiny infant. Kaylee buries her face in her hands and silently mourns for what she never even had and Hannah left behind.