Work Text:
“You worry too much, Lucille.” Roland seems calm, but you know his eyes tell another story, even without looking at them.
Imagine this: you’re both young and foolish and newly wedded, and the prospect of a child is equal parts terrifying and exciting. You spend hours decorating the room, choosing between cribs, making tiny hats. You feel the child turning in your stomach, and it’s the most magical feeling you’ve ever experienced.
Your daughter is born (Madeline, little Madeline) and you swear to protect her.
You fail.
Is it so wrong to worry about Hershel?
Your son finally leaves with Randall. He gives you a hug and a smile and off he goes, and you stay in the road leading out of Stansbury and into the desert watching them until they pass the horizon.
Imagine this: your daughter is eight and you have a picnic in a forest, near a lake. You bring sandwiches and muffins, and Roland gives puzzle after puzzle. Madeline searches for hint coins high in the trees and peeks at bird nests. You laugh, so happy, at her antics.
A moment of distraction is all it takes.
Madeline falls and breaks her neck.
Hershel comes back and Randall doesn’t. You are relieved he is alive, but you know that a part of him died in those ruins. His eyes have no light anymore.
Imagine this: the funeral is more than what you can handle. You can’t bear to see her face, knowing she won’t open her eyes ever again. She won’t ask for more puzzles, nor search relentlessly for hint coins for her collection. She won’t bring you an injured bird home anymore.
You remember the empty eyes of her corpse. Her eyes have no light anymore.
Your son wants to go away from Stansbury. You decide to move to London. He is happier there. He has friends, a girlfriend, a passion. Clark and Brenda and Claire make him happy. You don’t have to worry anymore.
Imagine this: Roland brings up adoption. You can’t have children anymore, barren from a difficult birth, and he suggests taking in a child. He says you’re lonely. At first, you refuse, thinking he wants to replace Madeline. He tells you that she will never be forgotten. After many years of going back and forth, you tell him it’s alright.
Your new child will be a boy named Hershel.
You smile at the idea.