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Baela wore one of her mother’s dresses to her father’s wedding out of pure, petty spite.
It didn't fit right, too tight in the chest, but she didn't care. If anything, it felt good , like scratching a mosquito bite, even if it didn't take away all the anger, the pain, the grief. Nothing did, she’d come to accept that. She’d scratch it open till it bled, that was just an inevitability, and then she’d probably scratch the scab off again later. Feel it again and again, all this anger. All this hate.
She didn't cooperate for the ceremony, instead she slipped out the side door as the flower girl pranced down the rose-petal aisle, disappearing into the parking lot and into her Grandad Baelon’s car. It smelled like cigarette smoke, made her eyes water and her throat burn as she pulled the door shut behind her, heels discarded in the floorboard so she could put her feet up on the hula-girl adorned dash. There was a picture in the driver’s side sun visor, she’d be able to see it if she flipped it down, of Daemon and Viserys as boys after meeting for the first time at summer camp. Calling each other brothers at the sight of their matching hair, inseparable, now father and son-in-law.
It made her want to vomit.
The sun beat down on the old red Chevy, sweat damp on her skin, the dress clinging wet and uncomfortable under her arms and at the small of her back, hair frizzing up in its polished updo. A little more sweat and maybe her mascara would run, would drip in replacement of tears.
The driver’s side door swung open, cool air rushing in as Jace dropped into the seat, and then shut again with a resounding thud. The air immediately warmed again, any relief disappearing under the summer sun, all sweltering proximity and his concerned eyes on her. Her skin prickled with a smug satisfaction they glance over the sweat-shine length of thigh where her dress has slid up into pool of dark blue shimmer from the angle of her legs on the dash. Her toes press against the windshield, hot from the sun, but not hot enough to burn.
Jace must have realized that he was looking too much, his throat clenching with a nervous swallow as his breathing stuttered, and he refocused his attention onto the water bottle in his hand. It was cold, sweating condensation, a water mark on the cuff of his dress shirt, turning the white fabric sheer against his wrist.
“Thought you might want something to drink.”
He offered her the bottle and it was a sharp relief against her palm as she took it, cold and crinkling, and an even sharper relief against her sandpaper tongue. When she offered it back, he hesitated for a moment, and then he took it, tipped it against his own lips, and she couldn't pull her eyes away from his throat.
That was, until the passenger side door swung open next to her and Jace startled, water spilling on his lap. Her father loomed in the space between the Chevy and the van next to them, heat radiating off the cracked asphalt, a smear of Rhaenyra’s pink lipstick at the corner of his mouth. A silver band on his ring finger, cool-toned against his pale skin where she’d seen gold all her life. It made nausea swirl in her belly, restless irritation under her skin, resentment bitter-tasting in her mouth.
“Jace,” He said, sharp, “Your mother’s looking for you.”
Jace looked at her first, though she wasn't sure if he was asking her for permission or asking her to keep him here in the stifling heat where they could almost escape a worse discomfort. She nodded and gave him whatever he was searching for. It must have been permission as he opened the driver’s side and climbed out into the summer sun. He didn't leave her immediately, instead he stood there in the space between the cars and stared at her father over the roof. She couldn't see the glare, but she could feel it as clearly as she felt the baking sun, and when they finally broke the contact, Jace went inside without another word.
Her father’s hands went to his hips, silver against his white dress shirt, and he sighed when she refused to meet his eye. Instead she fixed her skirt, trapping fabric between her knees so it wouldn't fall, and sank farther into the seat to ignore him.
“If I make you come inside, are you going to cause a scene?”
Baela didn't look at him, but she did firmly nod at that,“Absolutely.”
Another sigh. It was almost a victory. It was never enough. It wasn't what she needed.
“What can I do?” He asked, a rarity.
She loved him. She hated him. He couldn't bring her mother back. He couldn't not marry Rhaenyra today. It was already done, her mother was gone, the marriage license was drying, there was nothing he could do for her. Nothing he could successfully take back. Nothing that could fix her, fix him, fix their family. They died with her mother, died in a hospital bed, riddled with tumors, inoperable, incurable. They never stood a chance without her.
God, how could they ever have thought they could survive without her?
“Don’t lie to me.” It wasn't enough, it would never be enough, but it haunted her every day. The possibility, the rumor, the sickening thought of it, of what could be, “For once in your life, be completely honest with yourself and with me. No more lies. No more half-truths.”
She took in a rattling breath, pushed forward, didn't stop at a plea for connection, instead brutalized her way to an accusation, “Were you having an affair while Mom was sick?”
“No.” He said, voice broken, angry, sad, creaking like rusting metal, like stairs rarely ventured. When was the last time they spoke outside of screaming at each other or biting back what they wanted to say? “Of course not, Baela.”
There wasn't relief. She shouldn’t have ever thought there would be.
God, she was just a fool. A stupid little girl in her mom’s dress.
“I wish I could believe you.”
She hated that saying it made her eyes well up with tears, that she could hear it in her voice. He could hear it too, he had to. How could he not?
He never responded.
The gravel crunched beneath his dress shoes, mocking her all the way back to the church.
Sweat dripped down her back, soaked into the armpits of her mother’s dress, stained it with the stench of stubborn misery.
. . .
December 29, 2019
She spent the next day in bed, the blankets too heavy, not heavy enough, crushing, untethered. Weightless, bones too heavy to move. Mouth dry, stomach carving its way out with a knife, too nauseous to eat, too hungry to think.
All her thoughts had sharp corners and there was nowhere safe to sit and breathe. To exist. To forget.
To think of Cregan was cheek-flushing, nausea-inducing embarrassment, guilt, a slice of real-time fresh and violent grief for the relationship that would never be the same again. He could say it would be fine all he wanted, but she couldn’t make herself believe it. To think of her mother was almost even more shameful.
To think of Jace made her want to die, but God, at this point she probably wouldn’t even end up going to whatever heaven he was in. The one for good people, the one where you ended up if you would never have kissed your husband’s best friend less than a year after he died.
How was she supposed to live like this?
It was misery and everything had to be normal. If it wasn’t normal, it would all fall apart. Her kids would notice something was off, they’d see Cregan unable to look her in the eye, and suddenly Baela would be just like her father.
Jace could forgive her for so many things, but even with all the love for her in his heart she knew he would never be able to forgive her for that.
Jocelyn came in in the morning, slipping under the blankets and fitting their feet together, cold against stifling warm, no socks, just sweaty misery. Cool palm against Baela’s cheek, brushing her hair back. It was knotted, tangled, even thinking about how difficult it’d be to detangle later made Baela want to shave it off and cry.
Her daughter didn't say a thing. Baela didn't know if she could respond even if she did.
. . .
“You’ll be his godmother, right?” Arra asked her, her nails painted blue and sparkly, bead bracelets on her freckled wrists in matching shades.
Their feet dangled off the dock into the lake, cool rippling against sun-baked skin. Arra showed more than her, already, despite being a month behind, bikini bottoms sitting below the roundness that she joked was all cheeseburgers, not baby. A boy, Cregan had let slip, despite plans to keep it a secret.
“Only if you’ll be hers,” Baela replied, because who else would be better?
Maybe Rhaena, but she was only sixteen.
Arra’s smile cracked open her face, like a vein of gemstones in a mine, ruby lipgloss smeared at the corner where Cregan had kissed her, a shiny smudge of it on her belly where he’d said hello to his son.
. . .
December 30, 2019
She went to work on autopilot. Smiled, greeted, took the orders, flinched every time the little bell above the door rang.
What was she afraid of, really? That Cregan would walk in? Her father? Jace’s ghost?
Arra’s?
The house was dark when she got home, the only light glowing from the upstairs bathroom, perpetually left on in the night since Jocelyn was a toddler and scared of the dark. Dae’s car was in the driveway, parked next to Jace’s. How long had it been since they started his? Did they know where the jumper cables were if they needed them? She should just call Cregan to do it, she knew he carried them in his car all the time, just in case-
No.
She dropped her bag on the stairs, busied herself with digging through the plastic drawers that lined the wall, labels peeling. There was a dusty picture frame above the plastic table bearing life jackets and fishing gear, Harwin smiling fuzzily down at her, a toddler Luke in one arm, Jace a little older in the other. Harwin on the dock, Harwin in the woods, Harwin with Dae as a toddler in a backpack carrier, his arm around Jace. Rhaenyra, young and glowing and pretty, with a younger Harwin, scruffy and handsome and smiling.
Baela’s hands finally closed around jumper cables, the air rushed out of her in relief, even as it stuttered and shook.
She can do this, can’t she? Keep going?
She didn't need him, right? Didn't require him to survive?
“They won’t lose me and neither will you.”
But what if it was a lie?
What if they’re just both lying to themselves?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
The cables fell back into the drawer, plastic scraped against plastic as it shut, grimy film on her fingertips, smudging on her work bag as she picked it up. Her key scraped at the lock, scratched over old scars on the metal, letting her into an empty house. In another life, he'd still be awake, sitting at the kitchen table working on his laptop. Waiting for her to get home. Waiting to make sure she was safe and sound and whole.
But in this one, the house was dark. The laptop was in his closet, long dead, like him. Like the girl she'd once been.
Maybe she was safe, but she wasn't sound, wasn't whole.
Her bed was empty. Once she would have fallen asleep on the couch instead so she didn’t have to face it. Now, she didn't even have that. The ghost of Jace in her bedroom, the ghost of Cregan in her living room, and the ghost of what her life used to be in every corner of this house. Inescapable.
Eventually, she went upstairs to her own bed. It was like penance. It was where she belonged.
. . .
“I think he likes the music. Here-“
Arra grabbed Baela’s hand, bracelets clinking as she pressed a palm against where Rickon kicked. He was a furious little thing, frantic kicks that drummed against her hand. She felt him more strongly than her own baby, most days, due to an anterior placenta, but she could feel Dae a bit more today with the thump of the music in the speakers.
“Gotta start them young,” Aly said, grinning, pinning the last bit of Arra’s updo into place, “He can’t be allowed to have bad taste in music, Arry.”
An hour later, Dae kicked furiously to the sound of Arra making her way down a backyard aisle to a flower-covered altar, the air filled with violin and piano. There was laughter, sweet and bold and without reservation, and even from her seat she could see the tears in Jace’s eyes as he handed Cregan a pair of rings.
. . .
December 31, 2019
Dark curls on the pillow next to her, her breath caught in her chest-
Jace?
She blinked.
No.
Daenaera, asleep on her father’s side of the bed. Of course it was. She’d been there at least once a week ever since he died. It shouldn’t be surprising.
Knowing that didn't stop the sting of it, though.
. . .
There were tears in his eyes when he held their girl for the first time.
She was so little but at the same time, so big, Baela couldn't understand how she fit in her belly just an hour before. Little fingers grasping, pudgy legs kicking and stretching, dark curls on the back of her tiny head. He stared at her like she was the answer to every question he'd ever asked. Baela couldn't blame him, she was doing the same, counting fingers and toes and eyelashes and thinking,
“Oh God, I made this. She’s ours forever."
. . .
Even easy decisions felt like crawling through a mud pit.
She stood in the grocery store aisle, just there to pick up things like chips, like sodas, a dessert from the bakery, a bottle or two of sparkling grape juice for when the clock struc midnight and sent them off into the New Year. But instead, she stalled, fingers tapping on the cart, telling Alyssa “your choice, baby, I’m not picky.”
Baela was picky, though. She always had been.
But nothing was appetizing now. She ate to keep from scaring the girls, to keep them from realizing just how far down into the pit she was. Texted her therapist while Alyssa played at being an adult, Baela’s credit card in her tiny hands with messily painted nails. Little stars painted on them in uneven tones, a glob of chunky glitter near the cuticle. It reminded her of Rhaena, of the sharp acetone smell in a hospital bathroom as she took her nail polish off so she could repaint them while sitting with their momma.
. . .
“I don’t know, Strong, I think she likes me more.”
Joff rolled his eyes at Arra, but surrendered Dae back to her. Arra grinned, brushing her fingertips over the newborn’s tiny hands, her little nose, and then holding her a little bit lower against her belly.
“C’mon now, Rickon,” She joked, “You kept me up all night, now give my future daughter-in-law a kick.”
Jace laughed, “You seem very sure about that.”
“Listen, between my and Cregan’s genes and yours and Baela’s? We’re set, our grandchildren are going to be gorgeous and intelligent and have incredible taste in music. It’s a given at this point.”
“Incredible taste in music is great as long as these hypothetical grandchildren arrive when we are a proper grandparent age. There’s enough teen pregnancy in this room alone to have an MTV show.”
Baela grinned, leaning against the love of her life where they sat on the couch, watching her best friend rock her baby girl alongside her soon-to-be-born-godson, and couldn't help but think about a someday. A someday where they were all old and grey and happy.
It was all she could ever want.
. . .
Nothing was simple.
The bed, haunted. The couch, corrupted. The shirt she was wearing when she kissed him? In a grocery bag shoved into the back of her closet, as if that would make it to where it didn’t happen. The shorts that had crawled over him? Buried in her laundry hamper as if a wash could cleanse them of her sickness.
She felt like throwing up every second since they got home from the store, since Alyssa had put the sparkling grape juice into the fridge and disappeared into her room. The house was a ticking time bomb, counting down the moments until Cregan stepped foot in it to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Part of her wishes she’d cancelled it, the rest of her knows she couldn’t have. Her children deserve to keep what they can, to cling to the traditions Jace had started and held fast to.
Celebrating together, through good or bad, always together.
. . .
Logically, she knew that Arra was gone.
What made Arra, Arra, no longer resided in this body, in this bed, in this room. She'd slipped away on the operating room table, unconscious but still fighting with all she had left to survive, and yet she was here. She was intubated, air forced into lungs, blood pushed from heart to brain, because Arra’s mother wasn't here yet. Because Arra's mother needed to say goodbye to her baby.
Baela couldn't imagine saying goodbye to Daenaera. It was the most horrifying thing she could think of, other than not being able to say goodbye at all.
So they all clung to Arra, to the ventilator, to the monitor that showed a beating heart. They laid Rickon on her beating, breathing chest for a few minutes at a time, watching her blood pressure and heart rate, trying not to think about the shift of broken ribs and sternum that Arra couldn't feel anymore.
Baela held her hand with its forest green polish, held cooling knuckles to her forehead, head bowed. Jace was with her, holding Arra’s hand on the other side, murmuring something about faith, about love, about Cregan. He’d always had a way with words that she couldn't quite grasp.
There was a knock at the door. Jace went to answer it and in her heart, Baela knew it was time. Time had run out, this would be the last time she touched Arra’s hand. The last time she heard her breathe, mechanical and strange. She’d have to surrender this place, this station, to someone who shouldn't have to be here, to the woman who would have to say goodbye to the one person she expected to outlive her.
Baela held onto Arra tighter, enough that her own knuckles go pale against the force of it.
“I’ve got your boys,” Baela whispered against the back of Arra’s hand, “I’ve got them, okay? He’ll never be without family, not so long as I’m alive. Whatever he needs. Whatever they need. They won’t be alone.”
. . .
Her heart stuttered in her chest when he walked in, a box of sparklers wedged under his arm.
They find themselves stuck in orbit all night, always circling their children but somehow always from the other side. The living room, kitchen, and foyer of the house make a proper loop, a track, and they followed it round and round. Maybe Dae noticed, maybe Alyssa, Baela was too afraid to ask, to break the tentative truce. To remind herself just what happened on that couch and just what could happen if anyone ever found out about it.
“We were lonely and drunk and it was an accident and we don’t have to dwell on it,” Cregan’s voice echoed in her head every time she met his eyes across the room.
Something in those eyes told her he didn't believe it either.
We don’t have to dwell on it. Who were they kidding?
Baela had been uncontrollably dwelling on things since she was fifteen years old, something told her she wasn’t about to outgrow it now, no matter how badly she wanted to.
. . .
“Look at my girls!”
Jace, laughing, beautiful, she never wanted to look away from him and their daughters, their little hands clutching at his fingers as they tried to stand in heels stolen from her closet. Giggling and swaying, precious smiles on their faces.
“Just like their momma,” Jace said, fondly, and when he leaned forward to kiss her, she couldn't help but smile against him.
. . .
Sometimes, Baela thought, the universe had a sick sense of humor.
A grudge, maybe, for something she did in a past life or an offense in this one that she couldn’t even recall. Something that made her have her momma’s face but her father’s temperment. Her father’s flaws. So alike, against their will, unable to agree on anything.
She tended to only focus on the Jace in her girls, on the way they laughed that sounded a bit like him, on the way that they pronounced certain words, the way they wrote their fours and the swoop of their cursive. His temper, his heart on his sleeve, his loyalty, his determination.
She didn’t like to find herself in the girls, not really.
Sometimes she wondered if Cregan did the same thing, only searching for Arra in Rickon.
The children were herded into the yard close to midnight, armed with sparklers and poppers as steam billowed out with their breaths. The countdown was closing in on them and she couldn’t help but look for him.
Instead, she found Jocelyn grabbing Rickon’s hand, pulling him around the side of the house, and foolishly, Baela followed. Her steps in the grass beat with the clock, Daenaera calling out the time second by second.
5...4...3…2…1
Baela rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of her daughter and Rickon. It shouldn't have surprised her, seeing those two kiss at midnight, but somehow it did. Somehow it was the knife to the gut. A reflection of some younger version of herself.
And behind them, on the other end of the house, unknown to their children, Cregan saw the same thing.
Part of Baela wished she could see his eyes, see if he was on the same path as her. In the moonlight Rickon looked more like him than ever. Surely he had to be thinking the same things. Thinking of a couch, of promises made, of dwelling.
How could he not? How could she not?
And just when it was already cruel enough, when her worlds were colliding, when the fireworks boomed and glittering red light sparkled, it was like Jace was there, whispering in her ear, almost a taunt, but a full truth.
“Just like her momma. Always has been.”