Chapter Text
Silver ribbons of steam lift in a swirling performance above her cup of tea under the scrutiny of her tired eyes. The house is still quiet in the early hour of the morning, the sun has barely started it’s ascent. No patter of a child’s feet stomping around with far too much energy and none of Waverley’s huffing complaints about caffeine and the time. This small pocket of time before the sunrise and before the house wakes is just for her.
Normally, she has a cup of tea or two and makes too much food for breakfast to lighten her sister’s load and by now, after nearly a year, it has become easy. Then there is the gauntlet of holding the focus of a seven-year-old long enough to get her fed, bathed, and dressed. Most mornings, since school began, Abby has been given the distinct privilege of standing at the street corner with her niece while they wait for the school bus and, some mornings when she needs enrichment, she will pick fights with the driver. After that, the dice of fate decide how the day goes which most days looks like Abby pestering her sister during work hours or anxiously lounging around the home with no work to keep her busy.
Most days, she is content. Maybe even happy. The time away to heal the bond between sisters and the broken pieces of herself was the best selfish decision she had ever made. The rage and the compounded hurt and betrayals that had been festering inside her for years finally felt like they were scarring over. It doesn’t hurt to be alone anymore because she knows she is loved, and she has never had that before. All her designer suits and her expensive penthouse do not portray the kind of wealth she cherishes now in this mundane life where she is an aunt and a sister who is welcome and wanted.
Still, despite it all, some mornings it doesn’t feel enough. Some mornings she wakes with an aching in her soul, a horrid want that bruises her scarred but ever-soft heart. Some mornings she can acutely feel the thread between her and Seattle that has been pulled taught by the distance she has put between them. On days like those—one such as this morning—not much of what Abby does is more than moping around and staring longingly at the pictures on her phone. All the precious photos she keeps on a special folder tilted Baby M which is dreadfully sparse. Two photos to mark the birth of baby Mariana Vera. Born with a full head of hair, impressive she had texted back to Mel and then, hesitantly, just as beautiful as her mother and because she is a coward she had added, speaking about myself of course. The simple middle finger emoji Mel had replied with made her smile nearly as much as the photo had. Five more proceed the first two of the baby, in various outfits, and one of her swaddled in a blanket Abby had sent as a gift. A final photo and most recent was of Mel holding the baby in her arms and smiling into the camera, head tilted so her temple sat atop the baby’s head. She looked tired but radiant, overwhelming almost to behold when her whole bloody self with soft fluttery kinds of feelings. Abby had not been brave enough to respond to that for fear that all be aching and longing in her would bleed through. Now that image greats her each time she unlocks her phone and that hurts too but happily.
Some love, it would seem, does not smother out from time and distance but instead flourishes.
The sound of stomping feet rings through the hall and stops outside her door.
“Auntie?”
“Yes Lydia?”
“I’m staying home today!”
Distantly, elsewhere in the house, Waverley croaks, “No you’re not.”
“But Mum, I don’t wanna go!”
“Too bad.”
And her day begins with a smile and a final glance at her phone.
Later that night, after supper has been had and dishes have been scrubbed and children have been put to bed, Abby sinks into her favorite armchair with a glass of wine. Waverley twists her lips into a disgusted purse overtop her own glass.
“I can’t believe you sit in that ugly thing.”
“It’s not ugly, you just lack taste. Sophistication, if you like.”
“You ought to have left it in Seattle with the rest of your garbage.”
“Well,” The words pluck at the thread stretching tight in her soul and fills her with its hollow thrum, “not all of it was bad.”
Waverley’s shoulders sink and her eyes grow sad for her so she looks away, unable to bare it. That was an unfortunate consequence of developing a deeper relationship with her sibling. Waverley now lives in a delusional state of assuming she knows Abby and perhaps there is some truth to that but she is not willing to acknowledge that. Ever.
“You know Abigael, there is a simple solution that could fix all your moping and the besotted looks you give your phone.”
She glares at her sister, “I have not and will never be besotted with anything or anyone.”
“Fine then,” Waverley swirls the wine in her glass and puts on the airs of thinking quite hard about something, “enamored.”
Abby rolls her eyes.
“Enchanted? Oh,” She grins with all the wickedness Abby had come to learn runs through the Jamison part of her rather than the Caine, “smitten. Yes, that’s the word.”
“Do you want me to finish what I started all those years ago?” Before, those words would have had Waverley’s shoulders hiked up to her ears and her hands would have lifted as a threat for an impending magical duel. Now, her sister smiles a closed lipped smile that is equal parts fond and mischievous.
“You could do that or…you could just call the woman you love.”
“The woman I—“ Her throat tightens around the words, forcing her to choke them back down with a large gulp of her wine, “Need I remind you that we do not have that kind of relationship?”
“You needn’t. Trust me.”
“And that she has a girlfriend?”
“Mhm.”
“And that she has never looked at me like that.” And likely never will.
Waverley levels her with a flat stare, “You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“That thing where you are extremely dramatic about mundane things and make yourself miserable with it. Sister, she is your friend. Friends call each other, girlfriend or otherwise. And, more importantly, if I have to witness you gloomily looking through photos one more time I’ll simply hurl myself off a cliff.”
Abby rolls her eyes, “And I’m the dramatic one?”
“Obviously.”
The last time she and Mel had spoken was well over a month past. Mel had rung her to thank her profusely, once again, for the monthly care package of clothes, toys, amenities, and a few books Abby sent from her personal collection just for Mel to enjoy. Mel had said, ‘You really don’t have to do this Abby’ and she couldn’t very well explain that really, she did need to so she had joked ‘well, you won’t let me pay child support.’ Mel’s beautiful laughter would have been a wonderful place to end the conversation but instead it was interrupted by a surprise visit from Ruby. The guilty ‘I have to go’ had twisted her stomach into knots but Ruby’s voice in the background, agitated, saying ‘are you on the phone with her? Again?’ turned it to a pit of biting, stinging acid and she had hung up without saying goodbye.
Abby has spent the following days feeling like absolute trash. The uncertainty made her roil with constant guilt. Had she become a tension point between the two? Was she putting stress on Melanie because she can’t control her own heart’s unending yearning? Perhaps the gifts were too much, perhaps her flirting had toed past the line, perhaps she had unwittingly made Ruby feel threatened, perhaps perhaps. The prideful parts of her (the wounded, under-loved parts) had wanted to cast it all aside without a care because after all, she hadn’t really done anything wrong. How is it her fault that their relationship isn’t perfect? She didn’t choose to fall in love with someone who will never love her back. The better parts of Abby—the parts that feel more like who she is now—chose instead to shoulder the fault and put even more distance between them. No contact and, for the first time, no care package. Maggie had sent her a handful of texts wondering if she had died, if she and Mel were fighting and Macy had sent a photo of herself pointing at their empty stoop alongside a plethora of question marks. She had ignored them both.
Abby raises the point of her chin haughtily, sounding only a little bitter in her own ears, “She hasn’t called me either.”
“Well—“
The phone rings. They both blink down at the screen flashing with Mel’s name in bold.
“Are you going to answer that?”
Abby waves a hand at it so she can offer an air of nonchalance, so she can pretend that she isn’t wrought with anxiety.
“It’s probably a butt dial.”
The ringing stops and Abby snorts through her fake smile. Unbearable disappointment washes over the slurry of her emotions, leaving her feeling a bit chilly and hollow. It’s fine, she tells herself, I’m fine.
“See?”
The ringing starts again but this time as a request for a face call.
Waverley gives her an unbearably smug look that makes Abby want to shove her onto the floor for.
She rises with her phone in hand, intending to storm to her room for privacy, but she can’t quite make it far enough to not hear Waverley’s chipper, “Tell her I say hello!”
When she answers, she intends to be cool. Friendly, of course, but not overtly so and she promises to keep the conversation short and sweet. She won’t flirt (on purpose) and she will keep the topics within a harmless circle of things: the weather, how are her sisters, how is Mariana, etc. She can and will behave because she will not be the thing to ruin Mel’s happiness.
The ideas and the execution of them, however, come to a fault when Mel’s blurry face comes into focus on-screen and Abby’s sees the manic in her wet eyes and the mascara running down her cheeks. Mel sobs her name, strained by how long or how hard she had been crying. The sound of it sharpens everything she’s feeling into a sharp and dangerous point. Whoever has done this to Mel, there will be hell to pay.
“Mel, what’s happened? Are you hurt? Is it your sisters? Mariana?”
Mel chokes on another sob which is discomforting. The only other time Abby can remember being privy to Mel’s tears was during her pregnancy. In the background she can hear Macy’s inaudible shouts and Harry either answering or mimicking the call. Mel looks like she’s standing in the kitchen, leaning on the counter. Her mouth parts to speak but her head snaps away at the sound of the door being thrown open. Every facet of her face lights up with hope.
“Did you find her?”
It’s Maggie’s voice that answers, “Nothing. Not a single trace that anyone has been here.”
Mel looks like she’s about to buckle, topple over into tiny pieces of herself. It makes Abby’s heart ache in sympathy.
“Find who, Mel?”
There is the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, “Did you call Abby?” Macy’s face appears on the right side of the screen, looking equally as haunted as Mel’s and then Maggie’s appears in the space on the left, distressed but briefly relieved to see her.
“What the bloody hell going on!”
“Mariana is missing.”
The world goes so suddenly still that, for a moment, Abby doesn’t even breath. Then it all comes rushing back in a hot torrent of rage. There are so many demons that would take any available opportunity to get their hands on the daughter of a Charmed One. There were a handful that held grudges against Abby—their former Overlord—that knew of her connection to the Charmed Ones. A possible overlap between those two circles could be where Mariana lays and that will be an active war zone if Abby finds her there.
Perhaps it’s a quick jump to such a drastic conclusion but nothing is ever easy when it comes to the Charmed Ones and their accompaniments.
Whoever has done this is going to burn.
“How long has she been missing?”
“An hour, maybe less.” Maggie says, sharing a look with Macy overtop Mel’s head.
“She has been so fussy lately. We thought she was sick because she cries all the time but she wasn’t. Non-magical or magical.” Macy adds.
Then Mel speaks, wretched and rough, “She was crying and I was trying to put her down but she wasn’t having it. So I went downstairs to make a bottle and it just went…quiet. When I ran back upstairs, she was gone.”
“And you think a demon has done it. That’s why you called me, correct?”
“I—“ Something crosses Mel’s face that could be surprise or hurt, Abby can’t tell over the phone, “I don’t know. Does it sound like a demon?”
“One that can get past our wards unnoticed?” Macy frowns.
Abby begins to go down the metal list of demons that exist inside that overlapping circle who fit the requirements when she is distracted by a sudden thump from behind her bedroom door. The logical side of her warns her that it is likely that she left her window open and the breeze knocked something over but the adrenaline fueled blood-lust allows only for threats to be perceived. One of the sisters—Mel, maybe—calls her name but she ignores it. Slowly she approaches her door and presses her ear to the wood. There is the slight sound of cloth rustling.
In her free hand, fire sparks from a single prick of red in her palm, warming the knob when she throws the door open. Her arm lifts quick as a flash to hurl the ball of flames into the room, aimed straight for—
—a baby. On her bed. Mariana. Dressed in a onesie with a Union Jack on the front pocket—an obnoxious thing she bought on a whim when she was dragged out of the house for shopping—and with her brown hair mused as if she has been in the wind recently. Her little head bobs from how swiftly she turns to look up at Abby. For a breath, they just marvel at one another. Then Mariana’s lips split into a smile and her arms flap furiously in Abby’s direction, precious little baby squeals of joy burbling from her.
She kills the fire.
“Abby? What’s the matter?”
“I—darling, I think you lot had better make a short adjourn to London,” Cautiously she approaches the child, standing at the edge of the bed, and almost flinches when Mariana zips across the blankets to grab onto her, “I think I have something of yours.”
X
Ten minutes later, Abby is back in the armchair that Waverley hates except now it is with a baby sleeping in her arms and the Charmed Ones plus their White Lighter inhabiting the sofa. Each of them share the same mix of befuddlement and relief.
“How long do you think she has been here? How did she get here?” Macy asks in the way that feels like a hypothesis she will test and answer all without the party’s input. Perhaps that is why no one answers her.
Maggie worries her lip between her teeth, storming eyes flicking between Mariana’s face pressed to the crook of Abby’s neck and to Abby, “You didn’t…?”
She knows Maggie means nothing by it—they are all friends now—yet she can’t help but feel defensive.
“If I was going to abduct your niece, I should hope I’d be the slightest bit cleverer than to immediately tell you I have her.”
Maggie winces, “That’s not what I meant. We know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt us. Now.”
“I think what Maggie was saying,” Harry gallantly steps up to quell a possible row (as he always) between the two, “is have you been in contact with anyone from the demon world recently?”
“Right! Why would someone go to the trouble of breaking in, stealing Mariana, and teleporting her to you?”
“We don’t know that’s what happened.” Macy chimes in helpfully which devolves into a hushed conversation of why’s and what ifs. Abigail, for her part, sits quietly and finds herself—to her immense surprise—enjoying the emergency think tank of the Charmed Ones (plus Harry) debating possible solutions to their current freak problem. All the mounting tension the last time she had been around them—it felt like a lifetime ago now, a whole journey of change and growth had happened since then—they had been buzzing around trying to save the world and fretting about the magical time travel induced pregnancy, they had barely any time to include her. Abby hadn’t even gotten the chance to say goodbye to Maggie before she left. There hadn’t been a slow moment for Abby to sit aside and pretend to be annoyed with their yammering over probabilities instead of acting. Now she sits there with them, it feels like finally all the newly healed pieces of her and the brand-new parts of her that have been dusted off and restored have merged with the pieces she left behind in Seattle. She feels whole.
Mariana wiggles in her arms, her head lifting off her shoulder just enough to bump into Abby’s cheek, and all her guests fall suddenly silent after a collective held breath. Each of them stares, scooted to the edge of the couch with their legs bent as if they are ready to pounce on her at any given notice. They wait but for what she doesn’t know.
“She’s waking up.”
“It’s 2:40 in the morning in Seattle, Abby.” Mel hisses, as if that is supposed to help her in anyway with her current predicament. Mariana is the first baby she has ever been allowed to hold.
“She’s going to start crying…” One of them whispers not at all quietly.
“Mel, go—”
Mariana tips her head back in an alarming jerky motion which forces Abby to reactively raise her hand to brace the back of it before it tips all the way back. Brown eyes (not quite as dark as Mel’s) stare up at her beneath thick lashes that flutter slow and tiredly. She turns enough to see her aunts and her mother watching her, nonplussed by their presence or the brand-new person who holds her it seems.
“She’s…not crying.”
Mariana yawns loudly which, for a baby, isn’t all that loud and drops her head back into the crook of Abby’s neck. Abby keeps her hand cupping the back of her head to keep her steady and, hopefully, lull her back to sleep. The fragrant earthy-spicy smell that always permeated the Vera-Vaughn household clings to the girl’s clothes and the nostalgia of that smell falls across her like a warm blanket.
“Baby whisperer….” Maggie stage whispers.
“She…isn’t crying,” Mel stares at her, eyes having gone wide from her awe, “she hasn’t not cried in weeks.”
Abby looks at her—really looks at her—to see all the small traces of exhaustion that have colored Mel’s person. Rumbled, dirty sleep clothes that looks like they have been lived in more days than they have been washed, dark sleep-bruises beneath her eyes, dirty hair fixed into a messy braid. This looks like it could have been the first time she’s left her home in weeks. Has Mel been calling in to work? The others don’t look much better than Mel herself does. They must have been taking turns caring for her, fretting constantly over her health if she won’t stop crying yet comes back healthy from all forms of testing. Especially a child none of them had time to prepare for or to expect until it was just there. And then, suddenly, the baby somehow travels across oceans to the house of the former Demon Overlord who has never even had the pleasure of seeing the child in the flesh.
It makes feels guilty for not calling to check on Mel.
“Well,” She rises slowly, careful not to jostle the sleeping girl, “ Perhaps she’s more of a mummy’s girl.” Abby smiles devilishly, with all the charm and warmth she hasn’t need to summon for use since moving to London with her sister. Predicably, Mel rolls her eyes and predicably, Abby’s heart flips around in her chest hard enough she worries it will wake Mariana.
“Really Abby? Even now, after my daughter was kidnapped—”
“Allegedly.”
“—or magically teleported—”
“Seems dramatic but plausible.”
“—across multiple time zones into your bedroom?”
“Mm, don’t have much for that last one. I don’t understand why anyone in their right mind would send me—well, any child but especially the Charmed One’s daughter.” Abby rounds the table as she speaks, pointedly ignores that way Mel’s face crumples in that pitying way of hers because of Abby’s self-deprecation, and drops Mariana into her mother’s waiting arms. They all hold their breath in apprehension but Mariana continues to sleep peacefully.
They meet eyes and Abby feels that contentment that has nestled between her ribs and made roost against the scarred walls of her heart slip into the ease of her smile, into the color of her eyes and rush of her sigh. Mel blinks at her and Abby just smiles back.
“Despite how it happened, it was nice to finally meet her. She looks exactly like you…except maybe her nose.” Their eyes hold contact and Abby knows that hers are thin windows into the truth of her, for clear view of the aching in her heart and the yearning in her soul. Two years ago, she might have deflected out of defense with a waspish remark or an uncouth innuendo but it isn’t something Abby has to hide anymore. There is nothing for her to lose by loving Mel. They all know her heart or, rather, what is left of it. It feels good, just for a moment, to give just a piece of it in a nice compliment and a second in time between them.
“We should go.” Mel rises in such a rush Abby has to step away so they don’t bump into each other. Instant regret washes over her, filling her with the steam that rises off those ashes and makes her feel hot in the ears. She takes another three steps away and folds her arms around herself.
“Pleasant dreams, Charmed Ones. If that’s what you lot do. I’m picturing unicorns flying over clouds of cotton candy or something as equally inane.” Her smile is a honed dagger with paper thin edges, kept powerful through years of use. Macy levels a flat look at her that makes it grow.
“Goodnight Abby. And…it was good seeing you.”
They dish out an assorted variety of goodbyes and even offer a hug or two—she politely declines Harry but can’t refuse Maggie—before they throw the bead that will portal them home. Abby stands there a moment longer to stare at the place they had left. Mel had waited to be the last one to walk through and had smiled at her over her shoulder before she left and it hung like the stars over her head, lighting up her whole world view.
There is a creaking behind her that makes her turn with a frown and she sees Waverley standing on the stairs where she had been sitting the entire time.
“Enamored.”
Abby flips her off.
X
Exactly nine days later, Abby returns to her room after a quick jog around the block—because she does that now, goes for jogs in the suburbs that her sister lives in—to grab a change of clothes for a much needed shower. Instead, her entire plan is derailed when she steps into her room and finds Mariana laying on her tummy, trying to put the long shag of the rug underneath her bed into her mouth. She’s babbling to herself, mostly saying no no no and mama mama mama. Abby’s grip on her water bottle slips and hits the floor with a loud ringing sound that startles them both.
“You can talk?”
Mariana, face all pinched up, starts crying and Abby begins to panic.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, darling,” Her shoes squeak on the wood floor and the thin material of her jogging pants slip but she lifts the wailing baby into her arms, rocking her the way she has seen done on television, “Won’t you forgive me for being an idiot? Hm? Your mother always has. It’s one of her more questionable qualities but—and you mustn’t tell her I’ve said so—it’s one of the first things that made me fall in love with her. There see? You feel better already don’t you?”
The baby makes happy little sounds against her shoulder from the bouncing Abby gives her.
“Now, I had better ring your mum else we will have a house full of fretting witches. Ghastly thing to consider. Bad enough with Waverley.” She makes the face of a person who has smelled something awful and Mariana bubbles over with bright peels of laughter.
“Mama!”
“Yes darling that is who I will be ringing.”
Before she gets the chance, Maggie calls her.
“Please tell me you have my niece right now and I am not the worlds worst babysitter?”
“It would seem I am irresistible to you Vera women.”
“Thank god. Stay put, I’ll see you in ten.”
Abby pulls the phone away from her face to raise a brow at it, “Did she just hang up on me?”
Mariana, helpful as she can be, chews on the strap of her sports bra.
X
The third time it happens, it’s late enough that Abby has slipped into her sleepwear and has settled under her covers with a book. It has been a subpar novel thus far and she only needs to finish the last chapter of the infernal thing and she can be done with it but mind doesn’t want to focus on words or plot hooks or anything other than the last unanswered text from Mel that sits in her inbox.
We did some research. Might know why Mari is teleporting to you and we think we can stop it but we need a little bit of your hair for the spell. Can you come to Seattle this weekend?
The weekend. Abby is fully aware that it ought to only take, at most, a day to complete a complicated spell or potion but Mel had asked for an entire weekend. An entire weekend summons hope that perhaps Mel has an ulterior motive to spend time with her.
No, there is some other reason I’m not thinking of, Abby tosses her book to the floor at the thought and glares at the ceiling, Mel is happy and in love with that barista who is a bore. Mel has never really cared to perceive all the ways Abby adores her and there is no reason to believe that has changed. In the days leading up to the moment Abby left she had all but cut her heart from her chest and dropped it into Mel’s lap for her to see and know all the places she had conquered, all the places she had smoothed over and left her prints on. Much as she would like to hope, Melanie will never love her.
Something warm bumps her hip beneath the covers. It is only the grace of expecting this to happen again that she doesn’t scream or kick at the visitor. Little hands grip the sharp point of her hip for leverage to stand, sending the blankets to the floor and reveal a half dressed baby with wide eyes. At the sight of Abby she beams and starts clapping her hands.
“Clearly, I’m going to be forced into raising you right. First lesson, you mustn’t teleport into a lady’s bed without her permission beforehand.”
Mariana tips herself forward to fall on Abby’s chest, squealing her delight. Her little hands search out the loose hair fanned across her pillow, taking two big handfuls that she joyously tugs on. Warmth floods her chest and it makes her wonder if this is what it feels like to be a mother. How could the future Mel and her mystery wife not return for such a treasure?
“Ma ma mama!”
“Oh yes, I should alert your mum of your newest escape act.”
I think I’m her favorite, she sends along with a picture of herself smirking at the camera with Mariana sitting on chest, stuffing Abby’s hair into her mouth. There is a five minute wait for a response that Abby uses to tickle Mariana’s round belly.
You’re actually letting her slobber in your hair?
I seem to recall a moment in our history when I clued you in to how delicious I am. Of course, you never took the opportunity to find out for yourself. Shame really. Unless…?
You never shut it off do you?
For you? Never.
You’re intolerable. Omw.
Ages had come and passed since the last time she and Mel had (playfully) bickered in this exhilarating way that made Abby’s heart race. Rather, it had been ages since Abby had been a reckless flirt to get under Mel’s skin. The rush of getting a response out of Mel (she had reveled in the negative because a positive was unprecedented) tickled her nerves, familiar and exciting.
“Mmm mm mama.”
“Mum is on her way,” Abby taps the tip of her nose, smiling when the baby does, “shouldn’t be long and you’ll be whisked away to your Charmed life.”
Mariana stares at her intently, “Mm?”
“Abby. My name is Abby. Sound it out, dearest.”
Mariana shakes her little fists and emits a loud squeal, “Mm!”
“Not even close.”
“Mm mm!”
Abby pats her belly, “That’s alright. You won’t need to know it anyway. But—and you must swear to never tell a soul I’ve said so—it is possibly the cutest thing to hear you try.”
Mariana’s brows pinch, “Mama.”
“Oh, well. Yes, your mum is very cute too.”
“Mm!”
“I fear we are talking in circles now.”
There is a knock on her door that they both turn their heads towards.
“Can I come in?” Mel.
“I believe I’ve made that explicitly clear.”
Mel opens the door armed with a half-hearted glare and pursed lips, “That wasn’t even very good.”
She’s dressed for work in a tweed suit fitted to be tight around her shoulders and the curves of her waist. Wire rim glasses slip down her nose when she sits on the edge of the bed near Abby’s hip and she has to remember if she has ever seen Mel wearing them before. She thinks not because she would remember the way her chest buzzes, tickles her sternum and makes her feel like she might be experiencing cardiac arrest.
“You look dashing.”
Mel says nothing—just gives her a stern look as if her compliments deserve reprimand—though she does bite into the corner of her lip so it stays flat instead of blooming into the smile Abby can see it wants to be. Her eyes take a quick, critical pass over Abby’s grey silk chemise she chose to sleep in tonight and then around her room.
“She didn’t interrupt a…visit…from someone, did she?”
“Why? Jealous?” Abby is pleasantly surprised to see a ruddy color darken the apple of her cheeks. Instead of a retort, Mel slides her hand across Mariana’s back—brushing against Abby’s that sits on the baby’s shoulder blades—and bends to kiss the top of her head.
“I’m sorry she keeps doing this.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
Mel raises a questioning brow.
“With the luck you Charmed Ones have regarding mysterious problems, Mariana occasionally teleporting into my room is a two on the scale of oh it’s fine to oh fuck the world is ending.”
Mel does smile this time, wide and beautiful, but Abby still gets another swat, “Watch your language. She is learning new words every day and if you are the reason my daughter starts cursing at one, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I bet you will.” She winks then jumps when Mariana slaps her little palm against Abby’s cheek. A soft breathtaking laugh comes from Mel that Abby would join in if Mariana didn’t slap her hand over her mouth next.
“Mm!” The baby explains and Abby swallows her adoration save for a kiss against the little fingers.
“Ab-bee.”
Mariana flaps her arms, nearly slapping her again, “Mama!”
She heaves a very put upon sigh and slides her eyes back over to Mel, “We’ve been going in this same circle since before your arrival.”
But Mel doesn’t respond, doesn’t seem capable from the way her mouth has parted and her whole face has turned into something dripping with awe. It’s the softest look possibly anyone had ever given her and it makes her breath catch.
“What?”
Mel swallows roughly, eyes dropping to Abby’s mouth that still has a baby’s hand covering it, “I…you’re just so—nothing. It’s nothing.” She clears her throat and shimmies her shoulders to shake off whatever inexplicable feeling had overcome her. “I’m surprised you aren’t trying to teach her to call you Mommy.”
“It would be Mummy, thank you very much. And,” She gives Mariana’s thigh a little tickle to make her break apart with sunshine notes of tinkling laughter, “I’ve decided I couldn’t possibly be her mother.”
Another inexplicable look crosses Mel’s face that Abby decides must be a trick of her own wistful imaginings because it almost reads as hurt, “Why?”
“I could never contribute to something— even with the help of your genetics—that is so utterly perfect.” In the dark of night, secluded in the space carved out for her in this home, the honesty feels easy to give. It hurts, of course, but it feels good to be vulnerable because she can be. There is immense comfort in knowing that no matter what she says, Mel will listen and Mel will care. Time may have kept them distant and space kept them in a discomforting state of familiar-but-estranged but Mel remained the one person Abby trusted beyond reason. Mel, who look down at her as if what Abby said has absolutely wrecked her, who moves her hand up Mariana’s back to cover Abby’s, who speaks and sounds impossibly sad, “Abigael, that’s not true.”
And what is she do except succumb to the way those words flay her, turn her into a stinging lump of raw nerves begging to be soothed by just one loving touch, just a gesture. It breaks her and she lets it, she lives for the scrap of feeling it gives her knowing Mel has done this do her. Perhaps that’s why the Tomb of Chaos had never been able to torture her right; no one was crueler to Abigael Jamison-Caine than she is to herself.
There is an emergency button located on the back of her tongue loaded with pre-recorded emotionless, snarky escapes. She can taste them on her tongue; so then you do think I’m her mother, how quaint and what would you know? And I suppose you’re right, I am exceptionally beautiful. Instead, she swallows them down and it’s hard because her throat is tight and her mouth is dry.
Instead, she says very softly, “Well, be that as it may, I’m afraid the proof is in the pudding darling. She looks not a damn thing like me.” And she sits herself up so she can pass the baby back to her rightful mother, ignoring how her heart breaks from Mariana’s immediate sounds of complaint and her hands that grab for Abby.
Some sort of internal conflict plays across Mel’s face that Abby doesn’t pretend to ignore before she at last reaches her solution and sighs, “I should go. I’m going to be late for work and you’re late for…sleep?”
Abby waves her off even as her heart smarts from the brush off, “I was going to finish my book and then possibly visit myself.”
“You’re disgusting,” Her words say but her smile is bright and lovely, “I’ll leave you to it.”
“You don’t have to. You could stay and help.”
“Mhm. And I guess we’ll just put Mariana in the closet until we are finished?”
“I’d never be so inhumane to our daughter, Melanie. We’ll just leave her on the hall for Waverley to find.”
“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re joking.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Mel gives her that stern look again that makes Abby want to kiss her, “Goodnight, Abby.”
“Good day, Mel.”
X
Abby goes to Seattle for the weekend and they preform an excessive ritual on herself and Mariana. Harry and Macy attempt to explain the finer details of the process and every step that needs taken but Abby does not care to listen. They don’t seem to realize that if it works or if it doesn’t, she will be content. Neither do they seem to realize that she is not bothered by her occasional surprise visits or that she actually relishes in them. They make a point that Mariana could land somewhere outside of Abby’s bedroom (or even London) and that is just the trick needed to make her focus up and put in the work. The time she spends there is nice—sleeping on their couch makes her nostalgic—which is maybe why she almost accepts Macy’s offer to stay for their family dinner on Sunday night. The absolutely, I’d love that was on her tongue when she had seen Ruby enter the front door looking nonplussed and Mel had gone to greet her. She had carried herself home on a wisp of smoke before Macy could turn back around.
X
Predictably the spell does not work which forces them to realize there is no outside force or curse carrying Mariana to Abby but that Mariana is doing it herself. It is decided—quite without Abby’s input on the idea—that until they can determine what exactly is happening, it would be safer for Abby to stay with them. She puts up a protest for the fun of it and maybe because she has grown fond of the routine she has made with her niece and sister in London but then Mel smiles shakily and shrugs at her and she promises to pack quickly.
X
“And we are certain this is the best option?”
Waverley presides over the packing of Abby’s things from the comfort of her office chair, Mariana playing with a plushy in her lap. Abby had woken up with her crawling around her pillow at around six that morning.
“Seems better than inviting the lot of them to holiday in London with us.”
Waverley winces, “Considerably. I don’t mind the Charmed Ones and their merry band but my house is only so big and you’re a handful already.”
“I resent that.”
“Good.”
Mariana flaps her arm which jettisons the stuffed jellyfish into the floor. A whine rumbles in her little chest.
“Mama!”
Waverley’s grin of delight is jagged with the fangs of wickedness.
“I think she’s talking to you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Abby flicks her wrist and the toy lifts from the floor back into the hands of the baby, “it’s just her favorite word.”
“I’m not so sure. I think she has the family jawline.”
“That would be impossible to tell. Mel has considerably more definition than we do.”
“Hm,” There is a quiet that Abby has time to fold a shirt in its dry cleaning bag, “maybe. She absolutely has your nose, though.”
“Did you wake up in a foul mood?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You are being particularly infuriating today.”
Waverley snorts daintily, “Have you considered that I’m acting out because I’m going to miss you? You ought to familiarize yourself with the concept, now that you’re a mother.”
Slowly Abby spins around with arms folded and the fiercest glare she can summon.
“You—“
Her phone begins to ring.
“I?”
“Should be grateful to whoever that is. They may have just saved your life.”
“You’re going to be so disappointed when you finally learn that I find you as intimidating as a kitten.”
It was an intended jab but she can only smile because it is evidence that she has changed for the better. They can joke about these things now. Waverley isn’t watching her like she is a bomb with a short fuse or supervising whenever Abby is in the same room as Lydia the way she had at the start. It makes her happy. Doubly so when she knows that somewhere her mother would be seething if she could see them now.
Still, as she answers, she rolls her eyes at Waverley.
“I have Mariana if that is why you’re calling.”
“At this point, it has gotten to where if I’m not within her eyesight, she’s with you.”
“I knew I was her favorite.”
“Mhm, sure. How long has she been there?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“I just got home from work and saw that my daughter was still not home and you weren’t here either.”
“Ah, so you wanted to nudge me into hurrying. Beauty takes its time darling, you should know.”
“Hear that, Mariana? Mummy is an incorrigible flirt,” Waverley whispers loud enough for Abby to hear, quite purposefully, “don’t be like mummy.”
“No hurry,” There is some rustling on the other end, Mel opening the fridge sounds like, “has she eaten?”
“Naturally. Waverley and myself took her into the garden earlier and let her have at as many worms as her heart desires. Just like my mother did for me.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”
“The mystery is just one of my many traits you are hopelessly attracted to, I know.”
Mel makes a choking sound and she hears the slosh of liquid hitting floor, “You made me choke on my water.”
“I could make you—“
“Don’t you dare finish that.”
“You’ve become so boring since I’ve gone away.”
There is another pause on line, this one absent any sound, and when Mel speaks again it’s hushed and coated in sugar, “Then you better come home and make me fun again.”
She wishes was alone so she could probably vent how that single sentence set her world on fire in best possible way. Already she is embarrassed that Waverley sees her eyes widen and hears the hitch in her breathing.
“I shall be there by supper.”
“My dinner time or yours?”
“Yours.”
Mel hums through the line, “See you in an hour then.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Bye Abby.”
She tosses her phone onto the bed behind her mindlessly as her head feels like it’s full of bees. Waverley clears her throat.
“You alright there?”
“Mhm. Put the baby down and help me pack.”
A blond brow lifts in contempt and, without looking away, she flicks her wrist and a number of Abby’s shoes and shirts lift from the closet.