Chapter Text
“What do we do now?” Mimzy asked, snapping Alastor back to the present. His attention was still all focused on the sleeping infant held in his arms.
He didn’t even know how to hold a baby properly.
All he could muster was a forlorn “I don’t know”.
This was a nightmare.
Except it was real.
Alastor was holding an actual, real, infant girl.
She was tiny. Soft, but solid, and feeling almost unnaturally warm in his arms. She was ghostly pale. Not the same way Mimzy was pale, or the way his father had been pale, but more as though she was almost… Translucent. Like she didn’t belong in their world. Translucent, yet solidifying by the second.
What a daft thing to say.
Of course she was solid. Yes, her skin was pale, but it was a natural pale. Of course it was, just look at it. Growing rosier by the second. As a normal, human, infant would.
Alastor felt like a phonograph record someone had tried to redact by sanding down the grooves, and now the start of the song was missing. He knew where he was, what was happening, but he didn’t know how. He had no clue how he’d arrived at this point; what had just happened. And yet, his brain kept telling him to spin the record and pretend the blanks weren’t there. To fill in the gaps with whatever made sense. To take a kitchen knife and by hand carve new grooves where the proper ones had vanished, and pretend the song was never crudely altered in the first place.
Why did his apartment smell like sulfur and ozone?
“We’ll… We’ll handle it.” Alastor finally said, after a long moment, and Mimzy scoffed—almost laughed—but with a panicked and frantic tinge to it. She threw her head up, staring wide-eyed into nothing.
“How? How the fuck are we going to ‘handle’ it? Throw her down a fucking well!?” Mimzy screeched at him, not actually meaning it. At least, Alastor was fairly certain she didn’t mean it. He hoped she didn’t mean it. She was just putting words to the hopelessness, because realistically, what were they supposed to do?
Her face fell back into her hands, and he could see her shoulders shake as her teeth clenched and she folded in on herself, letting out choked and restrained whimpers and whines.
It wasn't like either of them wanted to be in this situation. It wasn't like either of them had ever even contemplated this possibility. But here it was now. Undeniable. The consequences of actions neither of them could remember.
They had a child.
They must've been drunk. That had to be how this happened. The speakeasy, or the apartment. They were alone together often, with nothing but bad conversation and worse booze to keep them busy. They made a mistake they'd been too wasted to properly remember. And now…
A baby.
Theirs.
His.
Somehow, that realization finally hit, and Alastor dragged himself away from his disjointed muddled thoughts and back to reality. He had to take charge, do the practical things, the real things, not dwell on the emotions and the gaps in his memory. He had to take charge as always, or nothing would get done.
He got up, got his coat off the hook and pulled it on, hiding the infant under his jacket, before grabbing Mimzy none too gently by the arm and dragging them both outside, onto a streetcar, and to the closest hospital. A million thoughts passed through his mind, far too many to care about decorum or appearances. He stood breathing hard and tapping his feet incessantly smack down in the middle of the streetcar, right where the imaginary line between the coloured section and the white section was drawn on the dusty floor. Mimzy was on one side, jittery and swiveling her head this way and that with wide eyes, as if searching for an escape. Factory workers sat half-asleep on the other side, and he felt their phantom stares burn into the back of his neck. He gently rocked the baby hidden in his jacket and prayed she would remain silent.
Were either of them okay? Why had she gone to his apartment before a hospital? Why was this his problem to sort out? Why was it always his problem?
Mimzy got pulled aside as soon as they arrived at the hospital, leaving Alastor aimlessly pacing the lobby, trying to comprehend how any of this had happened to him. Why hadn’t they prepared?
Why couldn’t he remember any of what led up to this?
Why was he finding it so hard to question the gaps?
It was like every time he tried to think back on the last several months the memories rippled and shifted like water until he could hardly tell what was a real memory and what was simply him rationalising what must have happened.
That record in his brain kept looping as though there weren’t gaps. And when he tried to rewind it, to take it off the phonograph and look closer, some unseen hand stopped his, and told him not to worry about it.
And somehow, his every instinct told him to accept that. To not worry. To not question.
He had a child. It was a fact.
It was.
And his brain was twisting itself apart trying to make it so.
It didn’t make sense. And yet, he could only question his own recollections as they solidified into memories around him. Not the underlying fact.
The fact was irrefutable.
He had a child.
He was a father.
“Sir?” A young woman appeared in the doorway leading into the lobby, her blonde hair pulled back into a neat bun behind a nurse’s cap. “Your, uh, partner? She’s healthy, but became agitated enough that she was given sedatives.” She said, visible concern and discomfort on her face. “The baby… It's a girl, full term, and seems to be healthy except for an abnormally high body temperature.”
Sedation. That seemed excessive, wasn’t it? But then again, the world they lived in treated outbursts as an outrage, especially when it concerned women, and Mimzy had never been one for holding back. It wasn’t like he didn’t know first-hand.
Taking a deep breath, Alastor disregarded his own spiraling thoughts, just like his subconscious kept telling him to. He needed to focus on the now, as he turned to the nurse. He could worry about both the past and present later.
“Can I see them?”
“That…” The nurse took a step back, raising the clipboard just slightly in front of herself like a shield. It was subtle. But Alastor noticed. Just as he almost always did when they had to speak to him. “That would break the hospital segregation regulations. Sir.”
“It’s my child. And my… Partner.” He countered, as calmly as he could muster under the strain of the situation, trying to maintain a level head and ambiguous phraseology. The words still felt utterly foreign in his mouth. Sharp and sour too. Though, in reality, he was probably only making the situation worse by saying them, if the nurse’s quietly appalled expression was anything to go by.
“That still doesn’t mean-”
“Ethel, it’s the middle of the night, we don’t have a lot of patients right now.” A squat older nurse with a brusque face chimed in from where she stood fixing herself a cup of coffee at the check-in counter. “We’ve got plenty of empty wards, wheel the mother into one of them and let him see her. Long as they stay separate, nobody will know.”
“Ma’am, the regulations clearly state-”
“Would you rather have him wait outside the front doors where he’ll be the first thing our patients see?”
Alastor felt the bile rise in the back of the throat, as the two women discussed him as though he wasn’t present. But he refused to let that show, turning to the younger nurse with a stony expression as she bit her lip and nodded.
“Fine. Give me a moment.”
The nurse scurried away, and moments later, Alastor was led down the hallway as she swivelled her head down every corridor. But they encountered nobody, and finally, he was allowed into a mostly empty hospital ward.
There were eight wrought iron beds, lining both side walls of the room. A few were unmade or entirely bare, there was medical equipment and a cart with supplies standing haphazardly in the aisle, and the curtains were drawn making it clear that this ward was not in actuality currently open and cleared for patients. But Mimzy was laying on the bed closest to the door, sedated, but breathing steadily and without any visible medical devices attached.
Next to her was a cot, and Alastor hesitated to approach it as though it might explode.
So the nurse went instead, picking up the infant and placing—almost tossing her—into Alastor’s arms before stepping back again, observing him wordlessly, as if to see what he would do.
He adjusted his hold on the baby, gritting his teeth as she almost slipped from his arms, with the way she’d been dumped into his clumsy and unprepared hold like a lit stick of dynamite. Alastor wasn’t quite sure if the nurse’s hurry was her being concerned about having to touch the baby, or potentially having to touch him.
Fine, he didn’t want to touch the fucking nurse either.
He focused on the baby, on looking her over. Her little face, her fingers, her toes… She was still almost worryingly pale, with her nearly-white blonde hair growing in sparse wisps. And she was warm. Very warm. But maybe that was normal. He certainly didn’t know.
A whiff of sulfur still clung to her hair, he’d swear. But as soon as that thought rose to the surface of his mind, it was again grabbed and pulled back under.
At least she didn’t seem sick, despite her warmth and lack of colour. Her breathing was steady as she slept, peacefully ignorant to the upheaval she’d caused upon arrival. The chaos. Her reflexes seemed okay too, from what Alastor could tell, because when he pushed a finger against her tiny little wrist to see if he could feel a pulse—not even sure if that was how one checked the pulse on an infant—her little hand grasped it.
She was so little. So helplessly, terrifyingly, small and fragile that her entire fist couldn’t even close around one of his fingers. He felt a strange wave of conflicting emotions wash over him. Emotions that felt as foreign as her weight did in his arms. Emotions he couldn’t quite place, and wasn’t sure whether he hated or…
No.
No, it wasn’t. Alastor didn’t love anything. And this creature was an absolute stranger, even if it shared his blood. That was the only thing they shared. That didn’t make them family.
Except, what he felt wasn’t indifference either. However much he told himself it should be, it wasn’t.
The baby blinked her eyes open for a moment, huge and hazy, with dark lashes and… And they were his eyes. Rusty brown and warm, so warm brown they were nearly red. Like dried blood. Like his eyes. She seemed to stare at him for a moment that dragged on forever in that silent hospital ward, and Alastor knew he stood at a crossroads.
“Considering the... Complications. I’d strongly suggest giving her up for adoption.” The nurse said quietly. His fingers tightened on the blanket folds.
“No.” Something instinctive in Alastor answered before he could even consider it. He’d barely registered the suggestion, before he’d already refuted it.
The nurse made a hesitant grimace. “Are you certain? She might have a more stable life in a more stable family. Not to mention the damage a bastard child would do to the mother’s reputation. Professionally speaking, the best thing would be to have her adopted away quietly and move on with your lives.” Her voice was carefully neutral, as if she hadn’t already made her prejudices abundantly clear. Alastor understood the implications in her words.
He was black, Mimzy was white. They were young. Unmarried. Not even dating.
How had this happened when they weren’t even dating? They must have been drunk. That was the only thing that made sense. They drank together in privacy all the time after all, and that in itself was scandalous enough, even if nothing had ever happened.
Except something must have happened, clearly, because now there was a baby in his arms.
They must’ve been wasted. That was why he couldn’t remember properly. That was the only thing that made sense. They’d made one drunken mistake.
And now they were going to pay for it.
The world would never accept this.
Still, as he looked down at the tiny bundle of a person in his arms, Alastor felt his determination slowly solidify. The same deep-down instinct of corrupted altruism that sent him hunting down those who preyed on the weak. The goodness his mother had tried to instill in him, only to turn twisted upon her death.
The world was shit, he had no idea how he would keep a baby safe in it. But would his daughter be any safer somewhere else? Would her world be any less shit without him in it?
He remembered his own childhood. Learning to hide from his own father since before he learnt to speak. Learning to never talk back, to always cower and apologize, to keep himself from being hurt. But Alastor was not that kind of man. At least never to those who hadn’t earned his wrath.
But other men?
If he just let this tiny girl go, would she end up in a similar situation? Would she end up somewhere she wasn’t truly wanted? Where she’d be hurt and berated at every turn, or even worse? Or would she simply… Vanish. Like foster children did. There was no way of knowing, if he let her go. He’d be relinquishing any claim, any control, any say. Any protection he might be able to offer.
Alastor realised, despite everything, that he wanted this child to be safe. She was small, soft, and…
And despite everything, he could feel some part of his malfunctioning heart growing attached already. Something deeply instinctive. His own rational mind held hostage by basic human instinct he hadn’t known he possessed. She was fragile and innocent, and utterly dependant, sleeping in his arms without a hint of discomfort or anxiety. She trusted him. He didn’t want her, but he…
She was a part of him.
He didn’t love her. But he felt… Responsible for her. Yes. That was it.
Some small broken part of his malfunctioning and cold heart started beating. A piece that hadn’t been beating before. A kind of fierce protectiveness, like the one that drove him to hunt and kill to bring justice to the guilty, even beyond the sadistic enjoyment. Except this protectiveness was louder. Fiercer. This tiny little girl was so much more innocent than any life Alastor had ever protected or avenged through deranged violence. And if he gave her away, he’d be failing to protect her.
He couldn’t do that.
It would go against the few morals his mother had managed to instill in him.
It would be a betrayal.
He wasn’t used to protecting through something other than violence and retaliation. He wasn’t used to taking on that kind of responsibility. He would have never even considered the possibility. But what choice did he have but to roll with the punches as always?
So he held on tight and swallowed hard before the leap into cold water.
“I’m not giving her away.” He said firmly.
But the nurse didn’t relent.
“She’s pale enough that she could be adopted by a normal white family. Her life would be easier if she was raised in a more traditional and stable family, and her parentage remained unknown. You and her mother aren’t even married.” She said, doubling down, trying to disguise the prejudice in her tone with pragmatics.
But Alastor felt the bile rise in the back of his throat regardless.
“No.” He repeated firmly, almost growled, holding the baby closer and squaring his shoulders. Using the same kind of intimidating body language he’d use when squaring off with a kill. Not actively threatening, not in a way that could ever hold up in court, but in a way that made the unspoken message clear. “I am not going to simply walk away from this. I don’t trust the world to protect her, to look after her to the extent I want her to be looked after, so I’m going to do it myself. Perhaps you can’t tell, because my skin colour apparently overrules all else, but I have an apartment, a steady job—that likely pays more than yours—and I'm a fully cognitive fucking adult who can take responsibility for my own mistakes.”
Alastor's voice grew sharper and more agitated with each word, as he kept himself from lashing out physically the way he wanted to do. The way he usually would. Here, words would have to do, or he’d ruin everything even further.
“I’m keeping her. That’s final.”
The nurse looked like she wanted to continue protesting, but shrank back and nodded behind her clipboard. “Fine.” She conceded, hissing through her teeth and sending a brief glance at the infant as if… Apologising? Whatever the sentiment was, it made Alastor bristle. “I expect you to be out of the hospital before the morning shift starts at six, because someone might actually need to use this room.”
As if he wasn't someone.
“Understood.”
Alastor sat down on the bare metal frame of an unmade bed, staring into nothing as he waited. The springs creaking mournfully and stabbing into his legs.
Part of him wanted to just take the baby and run before Mimzy woke up, because this was a conversation he'd never thought he'd need to have and absolutely didn't want to have.
Instead he waited, detached from reality, with the weight of an infant in his arms. So tiny and light, yet so incomprehensibly heavy. Struggling with himself and the choice he’d just made.
Somewhere around the third hour mark, Mimzy stirred with a groan, dragging a hand across her eyes.
“I’ll kill that fucking doctor…” She grumbled groggily, trying to push herself upright in bed.
“Language, my dear.” He answered flatly.
Mimzy blinked up at him in surprise where he sat on the bed next over, holding the bundled baby still in his tired arms. The idea of putting her back in the bassinet had somehow never occurred.
“Damn, they actually let you into the ward?”
“They opened up an unused one and allowed me in, so long as I don't bother the ‘proper’ patients.” Alastor responded dryly.
“Look at it this way; you got me a private room free of charge.” Mimzy managed to pull herself back against the headboard, pinching her nose against the grogginess of the sedatives. Her eyes landed on the infant in Alastor’s arms, and her face twisted with a mix of apprehension and resignation followed by a deep sigh. “I guess… Is the baby alright?”
Alastor looked back down, shifting the bundle to let Mimzy see the tiny pale face. She grimaced in response. “A girl. A little warm, but nothing the nurses seemed concerned about.”
“So… Now what? What do we do now?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? She's our problem. We bring her home and figure it out. What other choices do we have? We'll make it work. There's no alternative.”
Mimzy looked at the baby, then back at Alastor, like he was being obtuse. Like she didn’t think he understood the severity of the situation.
He did, but what else could they do?
“Alastor. We’re not married. We’re not even fucking dating. We’re two idiots who got drunk and made shitty choices. Do you have any idea how people will react if they find out we had a kid? You might be okay, nobody gives a fuck what men do, but do you have any idea what society treats unmarried mothers like? My entire fucking reputation will be ruined. Everyone will think I'm some kind of… Of whore, that I’m... I’m..."
She wasn’t wrong. Alastor might get some dirty looks, but no one batted an eye if a man had premarital relations. He would be fine.
At least so long as nobody found out it was with a white woman.
But for Mimzy, it was a whole different matter.
“I can take her alone.” Honestly, that would be easier. “Nobody has to know where she came from, nobody needs to know you were involved. We don't owe anyone an explanation.”
Mimzy scoffed, throwing her head back against the pillows on the headboard, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes.
“Take her and then what? Get lynched for ‘stealing’ a white baby?”
Alastor flinched.
“And; they'll know.” Mimzy continued, voice thick. “Or at least speculate. What other women do you spend time with? Especially blonde white women. And that'll be even worse, because then not only will I be a whore, I'll be a whore who abandoned my kid.”
“Alright then, what's your idea?” Alastor asked sharply, his voice a ragged growl as his own stress increased by the accuracy of her words.
“We give her away and pretend this never happened.”
“No.”
“I’m not saying we abandon her, but we’re a fucking mess, Al! We’re not responsible enough to raise a kid.”
“Didn’t stop others.”
Mimzy looked helplessly at the dozing baby in Alastor’s arms, as he kept refusing to humour her arguments. “She won’t have a chance either. You know that, right? The world is going to treat her like crap. A… A fucking bastard, or an abomination, or… She won’t have a single fucking chance out there! You wanting to keep her is selfish!”
“It's not selfish!” Alastor snapped, his voice rising instinctively and his arms tightening as he leaned forward and showed teeth. But the abrupt movement and sudden noise made the baby startle awake, beginning to squirm and cry noisily in his arms.
Alastor's stomach sank. He held her out at an arm's length immediately, worried he might've squeezed her, and her little feet kicked in the air as she wept.
“Shit, shh- shh, it's okay-” Alastor started to comfort feebly, without any real clue as to what he was doing.
Her cries felt like they stabbed him.
“… You really are your ma’s son, huh.” Mimzy noted quietly, as he tried to rock the baby back to calm.
She'd died ages ago.
She would have known what to do.
Sighing deeply, Mimzy sank back down into the mattress before casting another furtive glance his way. The wailing was quieting down to sniffles.
“She'd be proud of you.” She finally admitted quietly. “Or, well, she'd probably smack you too. But mostly proud.”
“I don't know that.”
Mimzy looked at the baby with a complex mix of emotions, before looking back at Alastor. “You really want to keep her?" She asked in a whisper that seemed coloured by surrender.
“No. I don't want to, but I have to.”
Alastor's life was one full of violence and secrecy. He had never felt this feeling before. This feeling that was not love but far from indifference. Like another living being somehow mattered just as much as he did.
Maybe even more.
He hadn’t wanted her. Hadn’t planned for her. She was a mistake, and her very existence threatened to take away his freedom and upend his entire existence in order to play a facade of normalcy so she'd have a chance at the same. But somehow, he was willing to do that. He hadn't wanted her, but he…
He'd kill for her.
He'd live a false life for her.
Hands that stabbed and sliced would be gentle for her. Even if only for her.
It wasn’t love, but it was close enough to hold on tight.
“Mimzy, we need to take her. Even if you won't, I will. I'll… I'll take her out into the bayou if I have to. Fix the old cottage up,” Remove the bodies. “raise her away from judgemental eyes.”
“And the radio station? Gonna commute from the swamp into central New Orleans every day? Train an alligator to babysit?”
Alastor flinched. He'd worked so damn hard for that job. Flattered and cajoled bigoted executives who saw it as a charity to even let him audition, suppressed every twang of a natural accent in his voice until he could barely remember what he used to sound like, accepted pittance pay for years until they finally deigned to give him a livable—though still below industry standards—wage…
“No, I…” His voice wavered.
His mother had given up so much more than a dream job.
“No, I'll just have to… To quit.”
Mimzy deflated.
“Honestly, Al, fuck you. Fuck you for even making me consider this.” Mimzy drew a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “What if we get married?”
Alastor froze blankly. He couldn't have heard that right. No, that idea was absurd. Sick. Making him sick.
“Pardon?”
“It won't solve everything. Honestly, it won't solve anything. But that way, we can at least mitigate shit. She won't be illegitimate. I won't get my whole ass reputation ruined—at least not as ruined—and nobody can try to argue she's not yours.”
It was a hell of a sacrifice.
“We don't have to be in love. We just have to make it work. Keep up appearances.”
It was a lesser sacrifice than the radio.
“Alright.” Alastor said, his voice trembling. But it was the only way out.
It was obligation.
It had to work.
“For Charlotte.”
The name slipped out as an afterthought. He hadn't considered it for even a moment. Hadn't even cognitively realized they would need to pick a name. And yet, there it was already. A name. A name that had appeared in his head as if someone else had put it there at the same time they put the baby in his arms. Unambiguous and unchangeable.
Somehow, Mimzy had the exact same name on her lips.
Charlotte.
Their daughter.
Alastor's daughter.
A family forged in…
Whatever this was.