Chapter Text
She wants Zelda early in the morning when her sister is still half asleep and pliable.
She wants to drag her upstairs the second she comes home in the evenings. Dinner be damned. (Sabrina enjoys take-out anyways.)
She only thought she understood why there were so many adjectives that apply to both food and to sex.
She is ravenous and Zelda is cinnamon between her thighs. She craves her, heady and spicy, morning and night.
Her days she fills with baking. She revisits old family recipes that bring the past to mind by way of her stomach.
The baby doesn’t care for Aunt Wilhelmina’s coconut curry stew—the only time she feels queasy is after eating it—but would have her eat grandmother’s cottage loaf with every meal.
All the cooking passes the time between Zelda riding her mouth and Zelda taking her fingers to her knuckles.
Cunt struck.
That’s what she is.
She hadn’t thought about that term in ages but she’d heard it again in a movie Sabrina and Susie were watching about poor Queen Anne—may she rest in peace.
She remembers the term being applied to more than one of Zelda’s suitors at the Academy.
She’d been furious every time she’d heard it—the very idea of reducing her sister to one simple part of her anatomy, as delicious as she knew that to be even then.
But she knows what they meant now. She can’t think of a more apt term for what she is experiencing.
It’s unfortunate that this personal heatwave is coinciding with a far more literal one in the town of Greendale.
When a pregnancy lasts more than a year, there is no way to avoid the summer, though.
She could do without the record temperatures.
She could not do without what Zelda’s tongue is currently doing with a piece of rapidly melting ice.
She’s left Zelda getting redressed upstairs when the doorbell chimes.
He is the last person she wants to see.
His eyes narrow and sweep over her form.
Any pleasantly lingering effects from her morning are chased away.
“Ah, I see the rumors are true.”
Faustus Blackwood brushes past her into their foyer, smug and amused. The bastard.
“Won’t you come in?” she mutters under her breath and closes the door.
“What a pity it is you’re still excommunicated.”
She’s swallowing back a retort on how it was a pity he was the one who made that proclamation when his hand suddenly leaves his cane and lands on her swollen belly without so much as a by-your-leave.
“A new Child of Night would be cause for celebration.”
Talon-sharp nails pinch through the fabric of her dress.
She’s about to push his hand away when Zelda’s voice carries through the room and has the same effect.
“Faustus. To what do we owe this honor?”
His attention immediately focuses on her sister.
And why wouldn’t it? Zelda has posed herself like a starlet at the bottom of the stairs.
“More tediousness with the board of trustees I’m afraid, Sister Zelda.”
“Please,” Zelda sweeps across the space. Hilda can still see the color high in Zelda’s cheeks from earlier. “We can talk in the office.”
He follows—of course, he follows the sway of Zelda’s hips—but lingers in the doorway.
He smiles, looks to Zelda then to her.
“Perhaps later the three of us can discuss your coming back to the Church.”
Zelda’s smile pinches. Hilda can only imagine her own expression.
“I’ll think on a suitable penance,” he adds.
Before she can respond, Zelda answers for her: “That would be most beneficent of you.”
The door closes.
She wipes her forehead with the back of a gloved hand and stares at the carnage in front of her.
She should have known better than to garden angry.
The tomatoes will taste as sour as her mood and she has ruined her turnip greens.
But she refused to skulk about her own house while that man plays lord of the manor with her sister.
That Zelda had stayed on as choir mistress and taken on other classes here and there at the Academy is bad enough. But now she’s back to taking private meetings behind closed doors with Blackwood again?
She’d like to think Zelda simply wouldn’t now. But she knows Zelda well enough to know that she would for the right reasons.
A very familiar shadow falls over the row of cabbage in front of her.
She ignores it.
The toe of a designer pump pokes into the greens.
“You’ve ruined those.”
“Like you would even know the difference.”
She glares at her sister.
Waves of anger bubble to the surface. The last time Zelda had been in the garden she had brained her with a hammer for sowing seeds of doubt in Sabrina. Now she has the gall to stand there--
“I didn’t expect him to turn up here.”
Here.
It boils over.
“Did you not get his cock out of your system before?”
She jabs the trowel back into the ground.
The hand that had been shielding Zelda’s face from the sun moves as she crosses her arms over her chest and stares down at her.
“You’re playing the wrong role, Hilda. I’m the jealous one.”
“You just don’t pay attention.”
“I’m trying to make things better. You know that. Especially for Leticia and for ours.”
“He is dangerous--to all of us.”
“Which is exactly why he needs to be dealt with.”
“Why does it have to be you? Why now? I don’t know why you can’t leave things alone. Unless there is some other reason--”
“Come inside. It’s hot out here and you’ve gone all red.”
So bloody patronizing.
Zelda has spoken to her this way for as long as she can remember, but it has gotten worse with the baby. Sometimes she finds it a bit sweet, Zelda’s form of concern. Other times . . .
“If my blood pressure is high, it’s because of you and not the gardening.”
When Zelda ignores her and offers her a hand, she brushes it aside.
“I can manage.”
Zelda’s squint has nothing to do with the sun.
“Manage then.”
She turns on her heel.
She takes no more than two steps away when Hilda feels something she’s never experienced before.
“Zelda.”
“I’m done arguing.”
“Zelda.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She moved.”
“Give me your hand.”
“We both know it is far too early for anyone else to be able to feel her,” Zelda scolds even though she is already kneeling beside her.
“Humor me.”
Lined eyes roll but Hilda isn’t fooled. She guides Zelda’s hand over the place where she had felt the odd sensation.
One of them is trembling.
“What does it feel like?”
Zelda’s other hand has made its way to her belly by the time she answers: “Like a bubble . . . floating in the sky.”
The eye roll this time is genuine.
“Only the sky is your uterus.”
Zelda neatens the curl of her hair and stands.
“It figures that a child of yours would quicken in the middle of a vegetable garden.”
“As much as it figures that a child of yours would in the middle of an argument.”
Zelda smiles.
“Well. The odds were in favor of that one.”
“Help me up and don’t be smug about it.”
“If there’s something you need, that I’m not doing, you’ll tell me? And not get it from him?”
“Hilda.” Zelda’s voice is close at her ear. “I’m surprised either of us can walk straight the way we’ve been at each other.”
She’s glad it’s dark so Zelda doesn’t see exactly how much her face burns.
“You know what I mean. I don’t like doing those things but--”
“I don’t need any of that now. Just you.”
“Zelda and Blackwood. How do they get on at the Academy?”
She can’t believe she has sank to this level. Needling her niece about Zelda’s behavior. It’s shameful.
Sabrina frowns. She isn’t stupid.
“He leers at her in a way that makes me throw up a little in the back of my mouth.” A hand falls to her arm. “But he leers at a lot of people that way. It isn’t strictly an Aunt Zelda thing.”
Sabrina smiles at her.
Clearly her niece realizes how pathetic she has become.
“I would tell you if there was anything going on. But there isn’t.”
“What do you find so amusing about our niece’s behavior?”
“Nothing. It’s just I think she,” Hilda dips her chin towards the ever-expanding bump separating her from the table, “quite enjoys your lecturing Sabrina. Either that or she is perfecting her clog dancing in-utero.”
“Just wait until you’re on the receiving end, baby. Then it won’t be so funny.”
Sabrina leans until her hand can pat Hilda’s belly.
Hilda watches Zelda briefly fight the same impulse before giving in.
Zelda’s eyes dart back to Sabrina.
“Do not think that this has made me forget today’s scene in the dining hall.”
“It seemed like a good idea at 16.”
Hilda dismisses her own middle name as a suggestion and offers Zelda’s instead: “Phiona isn’t bad.”
“Phiona is beautiful. However, even I am not vain enough to name our baby after myself.”
“Do you not want her to be part of the Church? To be able to grow in her powers?”
“If it’s what she wants, but she hasn’t even been born yet, Zelda.”
“She’ll have no decision to make if she’s born to an excommunicated mother and a mortal father!”
Hilda had hoped she’d have at least a few more years before they were having this particular argument.
“Do you have any idea what I went through to get this?”
Not for the first time this evening, Zelda waves a letter at her, a missive from the High Priest himself stipulating the terms by which she could rejoin the Church of Night.
“I can imagine.”
It sounds exactly as she had meant it.
She doesn’t expect Zelda to jerk her by the arms and hold her fast.
“Let go.”
“No. Read my mind. See for yourself. Once and for all.”
She will not.
“I don’t want to see it. I believe you.”
She isn’t convincing on the last point. She has tried to convince herself.
“Do you really? Because you keep bringing it up.” Zelda’s face is close to hers; Zelda is dangerously angry. “Obviously I’m not to be trusted. Can’t keep my word. Can’t keep my legs closed.”
“Don’t.”
She tries to pull away again but Zelda will have none of it. Her fingers tighten. There will be bruises.
“There were, of course, the times when I was a student but those hardly count. What you want to know about is how I fucked him here where we are standing, moments after you left the room.” Zelda looks at the rug under their feet. She can only watch her sister’s face in horror as she goes on. “How we whipped ourselves until we both came right next to your bed. I’m surprised you didn’t find blood on the quilt and know sooner. We met in the dungeons of the Academy. My house calls. Sometimes a cane. Sometimes something more creative. And then I got on my knees in his office and offered oh so sweetly. No more troubling questions when he’s coming in my mouth. There you have it.”
Zelda lets her go and she takes an unsteady step back.
“Now tell me how that mortal took you and we will be even.”
She rubs at her arms even though she meant not to.
“Hilda.”
Zelda’s turn to sound frightened.
“I’m still breathing so you are exercising some self-restraint at least.”
“It’s too cold out.”
“I’m counting on it to have cooled you off.”
Zelda’s hand flicks in response. A bit of red ash falls past the rail of the porch and disappears.
“And I’ve come to apologize.”
She’s right behind Zelda but her sister doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge her in any way.
“I shouldn’t have kept on after you said it was over. I do believe you.”
It might be easier to say this to Zelda’s back.
“I know it’s wrong of me--” Her fingers spread over a tense shoulder blade. “That it goes against everything we were ever taught.” They bunch into the fabric. “But I have hated every single one of them. Everyone who has ever touched you.”
She had giggled in excitement about the romantic details, blushed at the more graphic ones Zelda loved to share. All an act. She had hated all of it.
She ends up with her cheek against Zelda’s spine.
“I’m sorry.”
She can feel Zelda start to laugh before she hears it.
“I think we both remember how graciously I reacted to sharing you.”
“What a mess we are, the pair of us,” she says as Zelda finally turns and faces her.
“Let me think about this offer. We have a little time yet.”
Zelda nods and shivers.
It’s only natural to step into Zelda’s arms, to shiver in turn when her sister’s hands slide inside her cardigan to rest on her lower back.
Zelda smiles as she is promptly kicked.
“Someone is all riled up.”
“I’ll never get to sleep.”
“Since that’s partially my fault, shall I help you find a way to pass the time?”
She likes the feel of Zelda’s hand tilting her chin up, the way Zelda is looking at her now.
“I would like that.”
She likes the hands sliding down to cup her bum, the fingers that are bunching up her dress.
Like.
What an understatement.
She may have gotten ahold of herself and tempered the drive of a couple of months ago, but she had not stopped reacting to Zelda like a sex-starved teenager. Just the thought of running her fingers up Zelda’s inner thigh makes her—
Loud footsteps and a throat clearing behind them.
“On the front porch?”
One of Zelda’s arms stays wrapped around her as they turn to Sabrina.
“Might I say your presence here is rather unexpected as well--as you are currently grounded?”
“Not as of yesterday,” the girl counters.
They both look to her to take their side.
“She’s right.”
Sabrina grins in triumph.
Hilda leans closer to her sister and more quietly adds, “And perhaps it’s best she wasn’t here for earlier.”
Sabrina’s grin fades.
“I’m going to assume you were fighting and not something worse and tell you both goodnight.”
“That was the last one.”
“Hmm?”
“There is not a single comfortable position left to lay in. I’m not going to sleep again until she’s born.”
“Want me to levitate you all night?”
“That’d be tempting if only you didn’t always, accidentally bump me into things.”
“Can I help it if you flail?”
Zelda has lingered behind, sipping on an espresso.
“I was thinking.”
Hilda glances over from her spot at the island.
“Always dangerous.”
“Please do not be flippant, Hilda. I’m trying to have a serious conversation.”
“Right.” She tosses the half lemon onto the counter and wipes her hands down her apron. “Go on then.”
“You are unwed and about to give birth and the two of us are committed to each other. I wondered, would you like to have a binding ceremony--before the baby is born?”
Eventually, she closes her mouth that had crept open of its own accord during Zelda’s proposition.
“Oh, Zelds. How sweet.” She closes the few feet between them. “And old fashioned. And patronizing of you.” She cups Zelda’s chin and gives her a quick peck to the lips. “But, no.”
One glance at Zelda’s face as she pulls away and she feels like a complete ass.
“You wanted to?”
“I thought you would appreciate it.” Zelda’s newspaper snaps back into place like a wall between them. “You’re the one who’s always been obsessed with romantic nonsense like that.”
“Look at me.”
She’d kneel by Zelda’s chair and make her if she thought she could get back up from that position. Instead she does something she has wanted to do many times: snatch the paper from her sister’s hands and toss it to the floor.
Zelda would be horrified to know how clearly her emotions shown despite the mask of anger.
“You’ve made yourself clear.”
“I haven’t. Obviously.”
She takes Zelda’s face in her hands. Zelda will see this and understand this.
“I--we are bound to you by far more than a ribbon and a vow.”
She kisses the corner of Zelda’s mouth.
“We are yours.”
Her bottom lip.
“You are ours.”
Let’s herself get lost in the taste of her.
“I don’t need any romantic nonsense to make that true. You know that, don’t you?”
Zelda nods.
“Say it.”
“I do.”
“Good.”
She goes back to zesting her lemons. Zelda isn’t the only one with a wall.
“Mind you, I’m not saying never. Just not right now, not because of her imminent arrival.”
“That was not--”
“I know.”
She knows it isn’t that entirely. However, she has not rejoined the Church yet and Zelda has not stopped reminding her of that fact.
“I’m trying not to be jealous that my not-even-born-yet sister seems to have more presents under the Christmas tree than I do.”
Sabrina eyes them both from her spot on the rug near the fire.
Zelda takes another sip of her mulled cider.
“For the last time, it is a Yule tree, and if you had told us earlier that you wanted nappies and burp cloths, we could have gotten some for you too.”
On rare occasions Zelda can be quite funny.
“I’ll make do with my one or two small gifts.”
She makes sure they do not miss her emphasis on the number or size of the presents.
Hilda rolls her mug of hot coco between her palms and smiles at their banter.
It’s a welcome distraction.
Besides, she happens to know that one of those small gifts is quite extravagant for a seventeen-year old.
Zelda had not been entirely convinced that Sabrina was responsible enough to be given one of their mother’s rings.
Hilda has faith in their niece.
The baby is coming today. Of all days.
Hilda is sure of it.
She is also sure that she doesn’t want to alarm anyone yet. She knows how these things go.
However, Sabrina walks in on her gripping the kitchen counter a bit too hard.
“You’d know if you were in labor, right?” her niece asks. “And you’d definitely tell Aunt Zelda, wouldn’t you?”
“Not a word from you. Could be false labor. And even if it isn’t, it could take ages.”
She’s almost relieved when she can’t hide her pain anymore. There’s something comforting in simply letting Zelda take care of her.
Almost.
Witches aren’t punished the way mortals are, but there is pain and there is pressure. That is simply biology.
The worried look that had marred Zelda’s face at all the “checkups” she’d insisted on long past the incident with the blood curse is gone, replaced instead by calm determination.
Zelda paces with her up and down their hallway.
It would be annoying, her sister right on her heels when she feels so very miserable, but every time she pauses, Zelda’s fingers knead into her lower back and she thanks Satan for her being there.
Later, Zelda is ready with a cool cloth to her forehead, her chest, before she asks.
Zelda presses light kisses to her temple, her knee.
Her sister has always been surprisingly good at this, at bedside manner, for someone who was not what she would call, even in her most generous moments, a people-person.
She listens to Zelda about her breathing.
She adopts a number of ridiculous positions throughout the night at her body’s own prompting.
The end is far away yet but she is more tired than she has ever been.
She simply needs to sleep and regroup.
And then . . . and then she can finish this.
If only Zelda would hush.
Her sister’s voice has gone from comforting to shrill.
“--people who thought you were weak. All the times I called you a ninny--and worse. Prove them wrong, prove me wrong and bring our daughter into the world.”
Zelda’s face at this moment is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.
Blue eyes blinking through happy tears but fixed on the squirming form in her arms. Her face painted with pure and utter amazement.
Zelda with their daughter.
Heaven, if she may blaspheme.
And then she’d seen her.
She hadn’t thought it possible to love anything this much and so completely.
She wakes to find Zelda beside her, deep in quiet conversation with the small bundle in her arms.
“I didn’t dream her then.”
“No. She’s real.”
Hilda shifts to be able to take her when Zelda carefully passes her over and what seems like a million muscles protest.
“Ouch.”
“How are you feeling? Really?”
“Definitely well enough to count her fingers and toes again.”
“They are all still there.”
That lovely lopsided grin that is so rare appears as Zelda admits, “I’ve checked twice.”
Lilith bless them and let her daughter inherit that grin.
“And what about your name, my love? Have you decided if you feel like a Teddy Spellman?”
“She’s very happy with Theodora.”
It might burst. Her heart.
It’s a silly thought but surely it has happened for far lesser reasons.
Zelda so proudly, and carefully, fixing the baby in Sabrina’s arms.
Sabrina so happy to hold her new sister.
She trusts between the two of them that they could find a way to resurrect her if she does indeed die of happiness.
“Are you still sure you trust me to be her mother?”
“You should see yourself, Zelda. You’re already her mother.”