Chapter Text
Nona came back into the world with a scream. The hospital room was cold and empty, the lights low, but still bright enough to blind her waking eyes. When the nurses ran in, flooding the room with sound, color, and equipment, her mind started to reel like an unspooling thread.
"No, no no no—" She sobbed, thrashing under the many hands trying to keep her still. Her head was splitting, the pointed pain as sharp as a needle in her frontal lobe. It hurt, to be alive. To be anything at all.
She stayed awake. Ever since then, Nona had not spoken a single word.
Hospital waiting rooms were likely Harrowhark's least favorite place in the world. She had never once received good news after waiting in one; either of the 'Yes, your parents really are dead' or the 'Yes, that condition you've got is chronic' variety. She was lucky Gideon was there, trying to cheer her up by playing footsie with her in the shitty metal chairs.
Much to both of their surprise, the visit had nothing to do with Gideon's allergies. The sequence of events that had brought them there was truly stranger than fiction.
After Drearburh was demolished, everything about the estate was handled by lawyers to ensure that the inheritance was split properly. A majority of it had gone to Harrow, but modest amounts were given to devoted members of the clergy. Anastasia was one of them — It was through her that Harrow uncovered a deep fondness for Alecto.
The hospital had dug up the heir of the estate's information as an emergency contact, seeking some sort of custody for Nona. It was one surprise that Anastasia was dead; and another surprise entirely she had a child that was comatose until that very week.
Apparently, Anastasia's stipend had gone towards keeping Nona alive. She'd been comatose since her mom died 2 years ago.
Harrow had reluctantly agreed to see the girl, more out of curiosity than anything else, but made no promises on custody.
Gideon's shoe had somehow found its way tangled up in Harrow's skirt when the door swung open. "Miss Nonagesimus?" the shrill voice called out (despite them being the only two people in the waiting room). There was something distinctly unpleasant about the nurse, something rakish. It seemed the last time she had smiled was before either Harrow or Gideon were born.
"Yes." Harrow stood, gesturing for Gideon to follow. "My wife will also be visiting." She didn't phrase it as a question. There were very few places she would go without Gideon at her side.
The nurse looked Gideon up and down at the word 'wife' — she couldn't tell if she was questioning her gender, sexuality, or both. Eventually, she shrugged. "Shift's almost over. Follow me."
Gideon grabbed Harrow's hand before they shuffled to follow. The hallway was offensively sterile, without a drop of color anywhere but the nurses' scrubs they saw in passing. Harrow did not like how silent it was. Obviously, the patients weren't awake, but nobody in the halls were making a single sound.
Harrow almost jumped when that grating voice rung out again. "We don't know if she can't or won't talk," the nurse said in a flippant manner, tapping her stiletto nails on her clipboard. "All of her scans have been normal. She should be a perfectly healthy twelve year old girl."
Mercymorn would have fit right in as an aide if she hadn't done humanities. This woman had an air of disgust about her, and an impatience towards the people she was supposed to be helping. It was par for the course in Harrow's mind — every nurse in the psych units she'd been to acted as if they couldn't be bothered.
Harrow mumbled, more to Gideon than anyone else, "I think you put too much stock into her body and not her mind."
"It's a coma ward, not a daycare, miss Nonagesimus." The nurse shot a glare over her shoulder (again, very reminiscent of Mercymorn). It was clear they didn't do much to take care of Nona besides the minimum.
They'd kept her at the very end of the hall, almost in complete isolation. When they finally reached the door, she droned, "After fifteen, we'll end the visit and do her daily vitals. If you need to leave earlier, look up at the cameras — one in each corner. She's been good today. No tantrums yet."
Gideon and Harrow shot a quick glance towards one another. 'Tantrum' was an interesting word to use for someone her age. She shooed them in, turning around before they'd even made it all the way inside.
Nona sat at the edge of the bed, kicking her feet lazily. Her hair was an absolute nightmare, tousled with sleep, and trailing well past her waist. Gideon stared at the array of drawings on the walls — very good, for someone of her age. It seemed that all she was given were crayons, yet her understanding of shading and form was strangely advanced.
There were several highly detailed drawings of the same headstone. Gideon suddenly decided to focus on something else.
When the door closed behind them, Nona's feet stopped kicking. She turned over her shoulder, timidly, much like a toddler peeking around their mother's skirts. It was paradoxically childlike for a girl of twelve. Gideon's breath hitched when she saw Nona's face. Every feature, down to the eyebrows, was nearly identical to Harrow's.
What really caught Gideon were the eyes. They were gold, much like hers, but they seemed dim; like an old light bulb about to flicker out. Her eyelids were open wide, making her eyes seem even larger. And she just looked so goddamn sad. The expression on her face didn't shift at all when she stared at Harrow, despite how uncannily similar they looked. Harrow felt as if she was looking at a twisted reflection in a mirror, a version in her mind of the little girl she never got to be.
She forgot how to breathe, for a minute. Next to her, Gideon attempted to gather herself. She waved awkwardly, "Hi!"
The girl still didn't move, although her muscles seemed to relax. She cleared her throat and continued, "I'm Gideon. This is Harrowhark— Harrow." She shortened the name in an effort to make it easier to understand. Gideon had no idea what her education looked like, and even though she could understand language, it seemed she had no interest in conversation.
Nona was completely unsure what to do, blinking heavily at Gideon. She was still taking the pair of them in, as if she were trying to memorize their features. Their body language appeared friendly enough to her, especially the one who called herself 'Gideon' — Nona decided right away she liked her very much.
She was also relieved to finally see people that weren't afraid of her.
She had no reaction towards her speech until Gideon said, "We're from the same place as you."
Nona furrowed her eyebrows, leaning backwards from where Gideon stood. There was no one else where she came from besides her mum — who she was told was never coming back. She didn't like how much the other woman looked like her. It was all wrong. Her mother's hair was never that short, and she'd always worn the most beautiful dresses. The woman's face was too pointed and sunken to be Anastasia's.
If they were trying to trick her, it wouldn't work. She stood from the bed to take a few steps back. Nona had hardly made a sound since she'd woke, but she'd scream if she had to.
Not-Anastasia asked, folding her hands together, "Nona, do you remember how old you were when you came here?"
Nona gave Harrow a withering expression that caused Gideon to stifle a chuckle. Without a word, it was as if she was asking, 'are you stupid?'. She held up her hands, wiggling all of her fingers. She was ten when she'd had a seizure. Ten when her mother died, leaving her alone in a nightmare she hadn't woken up from.
Harrow felt a stab of pain in her heart upon seeing that weak glare. It was far too young of a face to pretend to be tough, too innocent of a gaze to have seen that much pain. She blinked against the pressure forming in her eyes, determined not to cry.
Gideon, usually the first to notice a shift in her wife's behavior, was otherwise preoccupied. She couldn't help but stare at Nona's drawings littering the walls and how insanely lifelike they were. Perhaps they were her way of talking. Besides the Dead Mum Wall, Nona had a handful of self portraits with various expressions. It seemed like she thought she was the most beautiful thing on Earth.
The other half of the wall was covered ceiling to floor with animal drawings — mostly jellyfish. Her personal favorite was the sketch of a highland cow. She poked her finger into it, as if she could stroke the texture of the fur. Gideon smiled over her shoulder at her. "This one's really detailed. Have you ever been to a farm?"
Nona pursed her lips together, shaking her head. She crossed over to the side of the room Gideon was on, right in front of a shabby bookshelf. The volumes were well loved, to put it kindly, dog-eared and musty with age. Most of them were for children much younger than Nona.
She withdrew a large photo book, holding it aloft in front of Gideon's face. Nona shook it back and forth a tad for emphasis, smiling her shy, naive smile. It was an animal encyclopedia, with pages and pages of what seemed to be nothing but animal photos. Some of the pictures drawn were copied almost one-to-one from the book.
Gideon stomached the wave of sadness that hit her, giving a wobbly smile back. This girl had never even seen a cow.
Nona immediately noticed Gideon's expression, and she set her book down, quick to become on guard. She furrowed her eyebrows together and pointed at her forehead, asking in her own way, 'are you upset with me?'
Gideon turned to Harrow, shrugging. Harrow had barely entered in through the threshold of the door, and she shrugged back. Her arms were crossed tightly around her torso, forehead pinched in that way that indicated she was in danger of tears. Nona's distaste towards her hurt more than she anticipated.
In an attempt to have Nona warm up to her, Harrow asked, unsteady in its high pitch, "…Would you like to go to the zoo?"
Nona's eyes lit up like a beam of sunlight, a giddy smile spreading across her face. It was the happiest she'd felt since she'd woken up. Mum never let her leave the house! She always said things were too dangerous, keeping Nona shut safely indoors. The last time she'd been outside was at her burial, and the scenery was atrocious.
She nodded so quickly that her hair began to fly up around her face, shaking her hands in a happy stim. Maybe Not-Anastasia was nice after all!
Harrow's smile back towards her was exceptionally sad. She didn't know how much longer she could maintain her composure.
Gideon brushed the hair from Nona's eyes, politely ignoring the tangle that caught around her fingers. Nona's expression was still open and sweet, a healthy flush rising to her cheeks. She didn't shrink away from the touch — Gideon was slowly becoming one of her favorite people, and they had only just met.
She smiled down at her, and her voice crackled with the warmth of a fire as she said, "Alright, sweetheart. We're just visiting, and we haven't got much time left. I'm gonna ask you something serious before we go, okay?"
Nona's heart sunk when she realized they weren't staying. They were going to leave her. What if they never came back? She nodded again, much less enthusiastically.
"Would you want to come and stay with us? We can go to the zoo, if you want." Gideon wasn't entirely sure how permanent the situation would be. She'd hoped it would be a guardianship, but the way her wife groaned over the mountain of paperwork seemed to indicate something more complicated.
Nona looked to Harrow, and then back to Gideon, a few times in rapid succession. They were going to let her stay with them? And wanted to take her outside? She pinched at her cheek, tugging it gently to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
She would never have made it so her mum knew, but more than anything, all Nona had ever wanted was a family.
Gideon was surprised when Nona tugged on her arm, wrapping her own around it in a loose hold. She could of course make the sounds for the word 'yes', but something always got stuck in her throat when she tried to speak. Mum had never pressed her to talk, and she had simply never cared to — why should she need to, if her mother could read her at a glance?
Now, she wished she could properly speak more than ever. She blinked up at Gideon, nodding earnestly. The spark in her eye had gone a bit dimmer, but still had a clear longing to it. Gideon felt her heart absolutely melt. She'd always loved kids, although Harrow was ambivalent about them, and it was a silent dream of hers to have a child of their own.
Nona slotted into that daydream perfectly.
Before she could say anything else, the door swung open. Harrow did jump at that, bristling where she stood in the doorframe, and moved to press herself against the wall. The team of nurses seemed quite large for one girl, but she quickly understood it was needed when Nona ran backwards to kneel behind her drawing table.
The only equipment they brought was a heart monitor and a blood pressure cuff, but she acted like they were about to disembowel her with a scalpel while the pair watched.
Gideon made her way over to her wife, slinging a protective arm around her shoulders. Harrow was giving the general impression of a glass about to shatter, the redness rimmed around her eyes quite prominent. She knew they needed to leave as soon as they could. Harrow already could hardly stand to walk into a hospital. Seeing a little girl that never had her girlhood taken away from her, one that looked exactly like her, no less, rubbed salt into a childhood wound that had yet to heal.
Nona began to kick back at the hands attempting to hold her upright, face growing red with the exertion. She even reared her head forward to bite one of them before her arms were restrained, locking her shoulders and neck into place.
'Tantrum' was actually quite the apt word for it.
Everyone in the room, Nona included, was shocked to hear her shriek. It was a guttural, unused scream; quiet yet very forceful. The nurses had managed to sit her down on the bed, but she was putting up a nasty fight. She struggled to reach out a grasping hand towards the two of them before a nurse pulled it back, murmuring soothing nothings into her ear.
Harrow's hand had found its way to her mouth, clapped over it in abject horror. Gideon's grasp around her grew tighter.
"It's okay!" she called out reassuringly. Gideon did her best to smile to her, ignoring the flash of fear behind Nona's eyes. "We'll come back, Nona."
The entire staff seemed to be rushing to her room as they made their way back through the hall, calling out for anyone that could hear. All over a goddamn blood pressure and heartrate check — that would no doubt be astronomically high.
Gideon walked as fast as she could manage to assist Harrow, pulling her along gently towards the door. Although the weather outside was gorgeous, the day was turning out to be anything but.
The moment they were alone, away from any prying eyes, Harrow all but collapsed against her wife. Every tear she'd held back spilled out, like something inside of her had ruptured.
Harrow sobbed against Gideon's chest, staining yet another white tanktop with black liner. Her fingers tangled into the fabric as she clung to her, like she were an anchor in choppy waves. Gideon wrapped her arms around her, stroking her cropped hair, leaving her hand to cup around the back of her head. "I know," she whispered, cradling her tightly. "I know, love."
The hospital had told Harrow they needed a decision by the end of the week. As soon as she got home, she started filing the paperwork.