Chapter Text
"Mumma?" Andy blinked, shook herself slightly in an attempt to bring herself back to the present. Her laptop had powered itself down on the table in front of her and she had done nothing but doodle circles on the notepad by her keyboard, she had no idea how long she had been sat there staring at nothing.
"Yes monkey," she tried not to let the exhaustion show in her voice as she turned to her daughter but knew she had failed as soon as she saw her daughter's face. Lottie pulled herself up onto Andy's lap and knelt on her thighs, her small hands coming to rest on either side of Andy's face as she peered at her.
"Mumma sad?" Andy sighed, resisting the urge to rub her eyes, deciding instead to wrap her daughter in her arms. She had spent her whole life trying to manage her depression and hide it from those around her, not having the words to explain the mess of thoughts in her head and she had mostly gotten away with it.
"I am," she agreed, she didn't lie to Lottie and she wasn't about to start now, even if that meant working out how to explain mental health to a four year old
"My fault?" Lottie asked, her eyes wide and Andy bent to kiss her forehead, lingering against her skin.
"No sweetheart, never your fault," she sighed, standing and moving them both to the sofa where they could both be more comfortable. Despite the additional room Lottie remained on her lap facing her, her legs tucked against Andy's sides. "Sometimes mumma just gets sad," she began, still unsure of where she was going with this, she coulf see from the look on her daughter's face that she was not at all happy with the explanation so far. “You remember when you lost Pingping and it took us all day to find him, you felt sad right?” Lottie nodded seriously and Andy brushed the hair from her face, “some people get that sad feeling even though they don’t have a reason like losing their favorite toy and it can be hard to make that feeling go away. Mumma takes medicine to help but sometimes it doesn’t work so well and I get a little sad,”
“Ok,” Lottie sighed and Andy could see that she was still thinking it over, her face serious and then she was kissing Andy messily and jumping off her knee, disappearing into the bedroom and quickly coming out again with Pingping and her favorite blanket clutched in her hands. Andy helped her climb back onto her lap and chuckled as she wrapped the blanket around her moms shoulders and cuddled up against her chest, pulling Andy’s arms so one was wrapped around her and the other around Pingping, “cuddles and pingping help when I’m sad, they help you too?” she asked and Andy smiled against the top of her head, squeezing her middle.
“I’m sure they will monkey,” she murmured, shifting them both round a little until she was more comfortable and Lottie snuggled further into her,
“Love you mumma, even if you sad.”
“I love you even when I’m sad too Lottie, always.”
Caroline watched Andy from where she was sitting on the floor colouring with Lottie, the brunette had been quiet since she had arrived at the townhouse and had claimed work she needed to finish when the girls asked her to join their game, she’d sat down with her laptop but Caroline hadn’t seen her do anything with it since she sat down. It had been a year almost since Andy and Lottie had become fixtures in the Priestly family's lives and Caroline had grown attached to each of them for different reasons. Lottie was the little sister she had always wanted, being a twin was great but it meant that everyone was always pointing out how similar or different she was to Cassy and it got really boring when she was always marked as the quiet or boring twin, Lottie didn’t see that though, she loved Cassy because she was loud and funny and always ready to play, but Caroline knew that Lottie loved her because she was quiet and stable, a safe port when she was feeling overwhelmed or wanted to read or colour quietly, it was nice to have someone recognise that in her and appreciate it rather than seeing it is a flaw. Andy had been the same from the start, she’d recognised that Caroline was her own person, that she needed something different than Cassy and had shared her own love of books with her from the very beginning, often while Cassy and Lottie were running around playing monsters or cowboys Andy would let her curl up beside her with whatever book she was reading, happy to be silent unless Caroline wanted to speak about something. She understood depression, her mom had been pretty open about hers for as long as Caroline could remember and she had learned to spot the signs that her mom wasn’t feeling her best, Andy had never come out and said that she got depressed but Caroline had seen her take medication at breakfast time when they had stayed together and she’d noticed some of the same signs in Andy that she spotted in her mom, this was the worst she had seen her though and she had noticed it building over the previous days, she’d assumed that, like the other times she had noticed Andy wasn’t quite herself, that it wouldn’t manifest into anything more than a few days of being withdrawn and she felt bad that she hadn’t done anything to help sooner.
Making sure that Lottie was occupied she wandered out of the den and down to the kitchen, Cara had made cookies that morning so she grabbed a plate and but a couple on it then rumaged in the back of the freezer for the ice cream that their mom thought was a secret but they had known about since they were eight. Treasures in hand she made it back upstairs without any of the cookies sliding off the plate and jumped up onto the sofa next to Andy who didn’t look like she had even noticed Caroline had left. Carefully she nudged the older woman’s shoulder and Andy blinked, rubbing at her face and turning to look at her,
“Hey Caro,” she said quietly, closing her laptop and sliding it under the front of the sofa before giving Caroline her full attention, “Everything ok?”
“Yeah,” she shrugged, burrowing under Andy’s arm and snuggling in, pulling the plate and the icecream onto Andy’s lap, “I’m fine, but you are sad and mom says that the best way to fix that is cuddles, a movie and some snacks, so here I am.”
“Oh love,” Andy sighed and she felt the brunette press a kiss to the top of her head, “I’m ok really, but thank you, please tell me that isn’t your mom’s secret ice cream?”
“Course it is,” Caroline giggled, flipping the top off and offering Andy a spoon, “but it’s fine, I’ll tell Cara tomorrow and it’ll be replaced by the end of the day, mom will never know.”
“And here I thought Cassy was the evil mastermind,”
“And Andy, you don’t have to pretend with us, you’re family and we love you, even when you’re sad.”