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“I was wondering if you were ever going to visit.”
Tyler stood from his bed, walking up and leaning against the glass wall to his cell. Five feet exactly separated them as Wednesday stood serenely on the red painted line.
“After the first week,” Tyler continued, “I thought someone might have chained you to a hospital bed so you could lick your wounds first. After the first month, I wondered if you could possibly have been so hurt you needed to emotionally prepare yourself to see me again.”
Wednesday chuckled.
Tyler laughed with her. “Yes. I thought so too. After a while, I figured you just weren’t coming.”
“I had nothing to say then.”
“And you do now?”
“Yes.”
“Well then,” Tyler said, getting more comfortable against the wall. “I’m all ears.”
“It appears that I am pregnant.”
Tyler’s brows rose. “It’s mine then?”
“You know me well enough to know that it is.”
Tyler shrugged in acquiesce. “Why are you here then? I hate to break it to you, but I’m not really available to play house and I doubt you’d tell me if you weren’t keeping it.”
“It felt appropriate to inform you. As much of a farce as our relationship was, I can trust that you at least had sex with me because you genuinely wanted to.”
“You know,” Tyler grinned as if he were sharing a secret at a slumber party, “Laurel was so pissed when she found out. Fucking you was a huge risk. People are vulnerable when they’re having sex. More transparent. I’m good, but I’m not that good. I must have slipped and let my true face out. Whatever my true face looked like at the time, I can only assume it would have given away everything if you hadn’t been so into it. And then there’s the risk that I disappointed performance-wise. I’m only sixteen, after all. We can’t expect too much from me and you could have been upset with me or worse, cut me out afterwards. Not to mention the potential awkwardness of being with you if you weren’t ready for the fallout. We both know you don’t handle emotional ambiguity well. But those are all excuses. The real reason she was pissed is because she was afraid you’d steal me from her. And if I’m being honest, she had every reason to be terrified.”
Wednesday stepped forward, looking expectantly at him with two feet separating them. The guards did not move from their perches. The alarms did not sound.
Tyler took no notice, his eyes only on her, reading her like he always could. “What can I say?” he answered her. “You’re hot and you don’t lie…usually. That’s more than she was when she got her hands on me.”
“She was pathetic and that was the most insulting part. I can respect that you were loyal to someone else before we had the chance to meet and that you allowed your love for family to take you to extremes. After the initial emotional ambiguity passed, I was impressed that you were able to hide from me while doing all the work for her vendetta. But she was not worthy of you, and I’m still working on forgiving that.”
Tyler broke into laughter, bowing his head as he let it out. When he looked up at her again, tears had begun to bud at the corner of his eyes. “You think more of me than most then.”
“Self-deprecation doesn’t suit you. Get yourself together before you meet our child. I won’t have your self-hatred infecting them.”
Tyler’s eyes darkened. “And how can you be so sure I won’t just kill you and your family the moment I have the chance? I have a history of violence towards outcasts and your family in particular is notorious. In fact, weren’t your parents a part of the class that abandoned my mother to die?”
Wednesday’s eyes shined with unimpressed amusement.
Tyler grinned that sweet, enchanted grin of his. “You’re right, but it could happen. History has a habit of repeating itself around here. Just look at our child. Another Galpin doomed to haunt their parent with a failed love. You won’t be able to hide it from them, you know. Every time you look at them, you’ll see me trying to kill you. Or worse, trying to love you and they’ll know. There’s nothing you can do to keep it from them.”
Tyler lost his grin halfway through, and Wednesday didn’t need to ask why. She knew how he haunted Donovan even from afar. She knew how Tyler was haunted by that knowledge.
“You seem to be operating under the impression that I regret being with you. Our child will be no more a ghost of my failure than you are.”
Tyler looked at her as if he were vivisecting her with his eyes, trying to get to the core of her and see the truth inside. It was a look she was familiar with, but rarely as intensely as then.
“Do you actually want me in its life? In yours?”
“I never said I didn’t. In truth, I hadn’t decided if I wanted to keep you in my life or allow you to become an interesting memory. With my pregnancy, I’ve renewed my interest. I’m invested in your future now. That should terrify you as much as it may relieve you of any burden being a lone, institutionalized hyde may have given you."
“Huh.”
“I bought the hospital by the way after all attempts to transfer you to the Addams’ preferred asylum in New Jersey failed. If you need to speak to me about your care or lacktherof, I suggest you do so. All staff have been notified to reach me at your command. Do not contact me if it is not necessary. I trust you will be able to know the difference.”
Wednesday turned to leave, having said what she came to say and contented herself with the execution.
“You didn’t fail in the end,” Tyler said to her retreating back. “You just forgot to take into account your own attraction when you were hunting a monster.”
Wednesday paused, and without turning back bowed her head in acknowledgment before leaving Tyler to his cell.