Children Aren't as Simple as We'd Like to Think [Closed]

[andhiswife]

The practical, sensible part of her knows this might not be a good idea. It's too sudden, too quick, too much responsibility striking like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. Greta's still raw and aching, the Witch's blunt exposition and the Balladeer's more gentle but no less horrible refrain replaying themselves in her mind with exhausting regularity. She shouldn't even be alive; what business does she have taking in a child? Especially one who, from the sounds of things, might as well have been raised by wolves?

Well. She doesn't have any business, full stop. That's rather been the problem, these past few days. Waiting to go home had been her chief occupation, and there's no point in that, anymore. If she doesn't find some way to fill the hours, all the loving support her friends can offer won't be enough to keep her from going mad. She needs to do something.

She can do this.

Her apartment was already neat as a pin, and it's been livened up with some art supplies and a few toys. It's not enough for the long term - the child will need far more if Greta's going to care for her indefinitely - but she thought it best not to jar the girl with an overwhelming display. Aziraphale only asked for help, after all; it would be rash of her to act as if it was a given that Lilly would be staying here forever. Maybe she'll only end up watching the child for a few days. Maybe Lilly won't even like it here.

Greta really hopes she does, though. Now that a potential purpose has been dangled in front of her nose, she can't help but grasp at it. And if she's a little too eager, well, that's better than the numbing fog she's been drifting through of late.

How refreshing, to want something she can actually have.

She looks around the apartment, as if to give the furniture an opportunity to object to the impending visitor. Then she picks up her phone and texts Aziraphale one last time.

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[mamasgirl]

It isn't the biscuits that cause Lilly to smile again, although the expression does coincide with the arrival of the snack. It isn't even Melanie drawing with her, even though that's easily one of her most favorite things to do. No, Lilly's smile is born solely from one thing and one thing only.

She's figured out where she needs to go in order to visit her friend whenever she wants.

Of course, she doesn't say as much. She lacks the words and, well, the biscuit is good. The latter is a fact made obvious when she all but inhales the first one... although she does do her best to at least attempt to keep her mouth shut while chewing. It's a fairly new practice for her but she's slowly - very, very slowly - but surely getting there.

Peering up at Greta through her lashes, she offers a hesitant smile. "T'anku," she mumbles, doing her best to imitate Melanie's manners. Then she quickly snatches another biscuit in one hand, a black marker in the other, and returns her attention to her drawing: a picture of her, Victoria, and Mama, standing on the cliff near the house where she grew up.

It doesn't look as good to her on paper as it does on the wall but it'll have to do for now.

[andhiswife]

There, now, this is much better. And how fitting, she thinks a bit wryly, that the way to this little girl's heart would be through her stomach, too. But unlike the last one, she expects Lilly isn't used to eating well. Goodness knows how they got by when they were living in the woods, but no one accustomed to plenty would bolt down food like that. It's not as if Aziraphale's been starving her, after all; it must be an old habit. The poor thing.

"You're welcome," she says, smiling warmly down at the girls. "And there's plenty more where that came from."

Now that Lilly seems a bit more at ease, Greta risks dropping into a crouch beside the girl. "Can you tell me what you're drawing?" she asks. Then, pointing at the smallest of the vaguely person-shaped scrawls, she hazards, "Is that you?"

[mamasgirl]

Lilly's body tenses when Greta drops into a crouch next to her but, before she can decide whether to react or not, she's being asked about her drawing. Immediately she relaxes and she gives a sharp, jerking nod of her head. Setting down the marker, she points to the others she's drawn.

"Victoria. Mama," she states. She presses her fingertip against the cliff. "Mama 'ump. Lilly 'ump. Victoria stay." Her lower lip juts out slightly, trembles for a moment, before she bites down on it. She misses her sister, far more than she can truly express, but pushes the feeling aside in lieu of eating the biscuit she's holding.

Once it's gone, and quickly so, she reaches for another marker - this one yellow - and, humming the song she learned from Mama, begins to do her best to draw the crowns made of flowers that she and her sister were wearing that night. Although a few strokes of the marker against the page and she pauses, glancing briefly to the woman who is now responsible for her.

"G'eta draw too," she says matter-of-factly, tipping her head toward the art supplies before returning her attention to her own drawing and continuing where she's left off.

[andhiswife]

Her sister, then, and her mother. There's something a bit unsettling about the latter figure, but then again, Lilly's only a child. Whatever she's drawing is bound to look a bit off, at the very least.

Far more unsettling is her matter-of-fact description of jumping. Is she referring to the Rift taking her? Does that mean her mother is somewhere in the city, as well? She suspects that's wishful thinking; surely they would have found one another by now if that were the case. Which means... what, that her mother and Lilly jumped from somewhere, leaving her sister behind? Ugh, it hardly bears considering.

Greta takes a blue marker, as ordered. She hasn't drawn anything in ages, but she's not about to refuse the invitation. Melanie glances up from her abstract creation with a faint, encouraging smile - a rather precocious child, isn't she? No wonder Aziraphale finds her easier to manage.

She tells herself she's not even a little bit envious.

Greta carefully sets down a few neat, simple flowers, listening to the fey little tune Lilly's humming. Then, she taps the blunt end of her marker next to the cliff's impression. "What's that?" she asks, keeping her tone light and curious.

[mamasgirl]

Although she doesn't glance up from her best attempt at drawing very tiny flowers surrounding the heads of very tiny stick figures, Lilly answers Greta almost instantly. "Hill," she says simply, uncertain how else to explain it. She points to the blue scribbles along the bottom half of the page. "Wa-wer," she continues, glancing briefly sideways at the woman with haunted eyes of a child who has seen far too much.

"Mama sad. No more baby." Then she smiles suddenly and the sorrow vanishes. "Mama 'ump. Lilly 'ump. Mama no more sad."

Her gaze cuts to the flowers Greta is drawing and her bright smile turns almost shy. "P'itty," she murmurs before reaching for another biscuit then returning her attention to her drawing. Reaching for the black marker once again, she begins working on another stick figure, this one a few feet away from the rest, kneeling, and reaching for Lilly and her sister.

[andhiswife]

This is hitting altogether too close to home, and Greta pauses midway through exchanging the blue marker for a green one. It's a struggle not to let her face betray how gutted she feels at Lilly's forthright 'no more baby,' or the larger, awful picture she's painting with a few simple words and some childish scrawls.

She knows, far too intimately, the pain of losing an infant (though at least she can convince herself her son is still alive, if beyond her reach). It might be enough to drive someone over a cliff's edge. But with another child in her arms... no. That is unfathomable.

Does this mean there can be no homecoming for Lilly, either?

Greta glances up at Aziraphale, wondering if Lilly had conveyed this much to him already - if he chose not to divulge it, or if he just couldn't decipher it, or if he'd hoped it was all some sort of fiction and brushed it aside. Lilly's quiet admiration of her work draws Greta's eyes back down to the girl, and she offers a faint, distracted smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Thank you," she says quietly.

What can she say to the rest of it?

Well, she knows exactly what she could say - if she presumes that forging a connection with Lilly is more important than maintaining privacy around the other two people in the room. The girl isn't likely to find Greta's situation all that horrifying if she can speak of her own in such straightforward terms. What's an accidental tumble compared to a deliberate leap?

She doesn't trust her voice to explain that she lost her baby, too, and that it also makes her sad.

Greta clears her throat, steeling herself. Then, she reaches out to press her own fingertips to Lilly's rough approximation of a cliff. "Greta fell," she explains, tapping the picture once for emphasis. Her voice is steadier than she'd thought it would be. Tell it like a story, like a thing that happened to someone else. "And then I was here. Just like you."

[bibliophale]

Oh, good heavens.

Lilly's not been here thirty minutes and Greta's already drawn more vital information than he'd ever been able to - and what's more, she relates to it in a rather unnerving way. He suddenly feels very much that he's intruding.

Still, though, it wouldn't do to back out at this crucial juncture. He inches forward and rests a hand lightly on Greta's shoulder, hoping that it isn't too much.

[mamasgirl]

Empathy is a fairly new concept for Lilly and not an easy one for her to grasp. There are moments, however, when the feeling is strong enough that she can't help but react. This is precisely one of those moments.

Her gaze slides slowly from her drawing of the cliff, to Greta's hand, up her arm, and finally to the woman's face. With a furrowed brow and eyebrows knit together slightly, it's clear she's struggling to say something. Finally, after a few seconds, she manages to get it out.

"G'eta sad." It isn't a question. To Lilly, it's obvious. Being raised by a spectre of a woman whose sole reason for still existing is the heartache of losing a child, the girl knows what to look for without even realizing it. "No more G'eta baby." Another statement of fact, but this one comes with something more.

Moving slowly, almost hesitantly, she places her hand over Greta's and squeezes gently. Then she offers a small smile and inches a little bit closer. Finally tearing her gaze from the woman, although not releasing her contact, she looks first up at Aziraphale, then to Melanie and gives an almost imperceivable nod.

"Mel'nie go," she says plainly. "Lilly stay."

[andhiswife]

The angel's hand on her shoulder is a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Greta sets down the marker so she lift her hand, intending to give his a reassuring pat - she's fine, she doesn't need him troubling himself over her emotional state when she's trying to prove herself a worthy caretaker. Her gaze stays on Lilly as the girl fixes her with an intense, searching look.

And then - oh, god, she knows. It's not even a guess. Greta forgets to breathe for a moment, her hand slipping off of Aziraphale's as she stares at Lilly, her astonishment failing to mask her grief. No use in attempting to deny it. Nor can she confirm it without more tears, and she won't have that. This isn't about her own losses. This is about Lilly.

Lilly, who draws more comfort from the parallels than Greta had thought she might. The little hand on hers is too mature an offering from someone so young, and it jolts her lungs back to work. Greta pulls in a breath as the girl smiles at her and scoots a bit closer, a far more childish seal of approval. She's staying. She's choosing to stay.

Well. This has gone far better and far worse than Greta ever could have anticipated.

The temptation to just haul the child into her lap is almost overwhelming, but she knows better. Greta settles for resting her free hand atop Lilly's as she waits for her heart to stop hammering and the ache in her throat to ease. She sees Melanie get to her feet, though she can't bring herself to look at the child directly (goodness knows what she's making of all this). Once she trusts her voice, she turns to look up at Aziraphale.

"I think we'll be all right," she says quietly.