Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two down, one to go.

Piper eyed the bed with a pit in her swelling stomach. She always thought she’d be throwing away doll clothes at sixteen. Not obtaining more. She didn’t handle isolation well, but she couldn’t stomach the thought of anyone seeing her like this.

Mom and Dad were angry when they found out. There were only so many question she could avoid regarding Dad’s whodunnit mystery he’d created for himself. He wasn’t even close.

Mom reprimanded her heavily, breaking her down worse than she already was. She talked about kicking her out— “if you want to act like an adult, you can get treated like one.”

Piper countered, “Then I can make an adult decision and have it removed.”

Mom had never hit her before. Dad had never screamed so loud. Piper had never been frozen to the spot. She wished Henry were there.

Mom gave her a choice—a demand, phrased like a choice—stay at home, birth the little parasite, and live happily with a little bit of help so she could find a job, dropping her influencer shenanigans (that made bank), or spend an eternity in hell for the murder of an innocent life. She thought she didn’t believe in that stuff. It was clear some part of her still did.

Dad asked all kinds of questions about the father. Who was it? Was it someone he knew? What did he look like? Was he still in school? Was he some delinquent drop out? How old was he? Did she think she could get a day in court and child support? When did it happen?

She considered telling dad it was some guy she met in her two months at FSU, before she got homesick and bailed. But he’d do the math and realize it wasn’t likely she’d meet another Swellviewian there. It was a city you never quite escaped. Henry was the lucky one.

Nobody entertained the idea that she couldn’t talk about it, or that maybe she hadn’t had a choice. She risked sleeping on the streets. She risked more of mom’s unhelpful conversations about adult decisions, ruining her body, and sticking her presence in places it didn’t belong.

She risked being told she’d asked for it, that just because a group of friends had an older friend that was “cool” and “like one of the kids”, didn’t mean she had to hang out with him too, especially when they were drunk and prone to leaving her alone when she lost her temper.

She risked all of his words turning sour, every calming hug that pulled her out of her perceived fight, every praise for her maturity, every time he noticed a new haircut, every aggressive text when she was around another boy that displayed a possessiveness deemed romantic because he loved her. He chose her when no one else had.

She risked her perception of everything he’d done for her and everything he was as a person, every time she dwelled on that night that came in bits and pieces.

She wished she’d forgotten that piece. She wished the pain radiating through her body and soul hadn’t been so prominent in that moment, that she could forget what utter betrayal felt like. She tried not to dwell on the fact that he dropped off the planet when she told him the news.

Piper curled up at the foot of her bed. One trimester to go. If mom wasn’t standing in the room at the exact moment the baby came, Piper would tell them to take it away and not bring it back. Tell mom it was stillborn. Pray that it was.

There was one outfit that caught her eye among the rest. She tried not to think too hard about it, but if she was being forced to see this through, the first step was the take home outfit, an olive colored onesie and little brown pants that would fit a teddy bear.

It was nature. It was the seed that had been planted sprouting into a tiny tree. It was an escape as much as it was a reminder that she could grow something beautiful, extracted from the ashes of her social life. It was a peace offering to the life inside of her. It was a promise. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right.

Chapter Text

One minute, she was soaking in the summer heat. The backyard provided the perfect cover for her to lounge in without the entire neighborhood gawking at the sight of her as she blew up like a balloon.

Crop tops and denim shorts gave way to baggy sweats and loose T-shirts. She kept her chin down as she attempted to hide the round shape her face had taken on. Even her feet had swelled. In the air-conditioned house, the wardrobe change left her unbothered. She only sat in the heat when her parents argued. Just eight more weeks.

Usually, following an argument, Jake and Kris would come out to apologize one by one, then relay their version of events to her. Most of the time they were arguing about her. She sat in wait, preparing a speech she’d prepared and failed to deliver over and over again, reminding them that she was her own person, they didn’t know the details, and she was the one they should be reprimanding, not each other.

The voice that spoke up from behind the lounge chair was not her father’s.

Henry wasn’t supposed to know. She’d made that clear. She knew Henry was in Swellview for some reason or another relating to his old job, but he refused to go into detail so as not to upset her. He asked her not to tell his parents, and she agreed if he promised to share his location. She wasn’t taking any chances.

Part of the reason she didn’t want Henry to know was because Henry was a menace when his overprotective instinct kicked in. The other part was Kris. As soon as Henry knew, she’d announce to the rest of the family that she was a grandmother-to-be. One visit from her grandmother and a bible study later and Piper would feel even guiltier without ever giving up the details.

Kris called him. She had to have. Henry didn’t look at all shocked when Piper whipped around with her swollen belly out or her legs hidden in the hundred-degree day. She rolled her shirt down and watched Henry’s expression change into what seemed to be some form of acceptance. Yes, this was real. It was the same expression she gave herself in the mirror every morning.

Henry wordlessly hugged her. She could feel his nerves like electricity as he tremored around her—or maybe that was just her, her chest heaving and her loud choking sobs displaying her disappointment at the sudden intrusion. When the moment was over, she felt several pounds lighter. It was typical of her brother to waltz in and take the weight off her shoulders. He’d always been her hero.

The next minute, Henry was asking every forbidden question that he could, in every shared environment: At the dinner table as Piper scarfed down her mother’s unfinished helping after her own, sitting on the couch behind her as he absently played with her hair while she maintained her social media presence enough to make a living despite her mother’s protests, laying on her bed while she chose another mundane outfit for the morning, brushing the knots out of her hair while she brushed her teeth because she couldn’t keep up with herself—Henry was everywhere with every question she’d avoided for seven months.

She exploded on him once. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to talk about it. She still didn’t know if she was keeping the baby. She told Kris she would, just to get her off her back, and tried not to think too hard about the very tiny outfits in her closet and the bassinet she had yet to set up at her bedside. Jake offered to do it. Piper tried to maintain some independence.

Finally, while Piper half laid on her bed, her head in his lap and her feet on the floor, Henry asked, “So what is it?”

Piper stared at the wall, unmoving, unblinking, another thing she’d tried not to think too hard about. “Girl.”

It felt weird to be this close to him. Piper wasn’t a fan of physical contact, especially when she was stressed, and she hadn’t known a day of peace in months. Yet for the first time, it felt like someone was on her side. And without meaning to, she let another vital piece of information slip.

“I think I’m gonna put her up for adoption.”

They let the words linger in the air, an unspoken agreement that the statement was not to be responded to until it settled.

“You gonna tell the dad?”

Back to the forbidden questions.

“I’m trying to forget about him.”

“Why? Don’t you want the support?”

The energy in the room shifted. The tension in her body that was usually laced with anger was unsurprisingly met with the absence of his hands as he pulled them away from her hair. She sat up rigidly, not looking at him.

“Get out.”

Henry watched her, stuttering half-apologies and trying to fix his response.

“Get out!” she repeated, louder and with a hint of the youthful ferocity that she’d tried so hard to bury.

Henry knew better than to argue. As soon as he was out of the room, Piper pushed her face into a pillow and screamed, thrashing her fists against the mattress and barely holding herself up on her knees. She didn’t care who heard the fallout when she finally collapsed and gave an anguished cry that would have knocked the house down if she could manipulate sound waves. In a perfect world, the roof would have already caved in on top of her.

Henry chose to stay for a while and was delighted to find his room the way he’d left it, a wave of nostalgia creeping over him as he rambled about all the fun he’d had in that room. He’d only been gone for like a year. Piper didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Two days later, he drove her to her appointment. She wasn’t allowed to drive herself anymore, not because of the pregnancy, but because in an argument with her mother in the passenger seat, she’d threatened to drive into a tree and take them both out. Her keys were confiscated in what Piper deemed the only fair punishment she’d been given.

Henry asked those damn forbidden questions again, assuming he’d be given some leeway because they were alone.

Who is this guy? Do I know him? Did you even tell him? Are you going to? Does he have a say in this? Should…should I be concerned?

All of his questions were met with silence, and a tense yet forlorn stare out the window. All but one.

“Can you at least tell me how old he is? Sixteen? Eighteen? Does he have a good job at least? Maybe you can get some form of child support?”

Piper was at her wit's end, her jaw clenched tight, her nails digging into the only pair of jeans that fit her at the moment. Her voice was quiet and croaking.“Forty.”

There was a pause.

“Hm?”

Piper wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard her, or he thought he misheard, or he was looking for an excuse to let her change her answer.

“Forty.” She repeated louder, her tone stronger as if she had just convinced herself.

She couldn’t see Henry staring at her, or the way his world was falling apart around him as he took in the information and pieced together the answer to another question he’d asked regarding how concerned he should be.

Finally, “Do I know him?”

Echoed for the hundredth time. Firmer this time. Because Henry knew a handful of forty-somethings and she knew exactly who he was thinking of. She knew he’d pieced the how together without her saying a word about it. The who would remain a mystery as she dropped her head and shook it quickly.

“No.”

She hoped it was convincing. 

Piper looked up, her eyes flicking to several things at once, her mind putting together something vital in the moment: her brother’s eyes were on her, the speedometer was approaching 50 miles per hour, and the car in front of them had stopped. A surge of panic jolted through her at the same time the screeching of tires met metal crashing and glass exploding in a symphony of disaster.

She’d have thanked her lucky stars her seat was adjusted so far back if she had thought about it. When the silence came crashing down, it hit hard. Her eyes were wide, her body tense, her jaw clamped so tight she wasn’t sure she could open it. One hand gripped the middle console, the other, her door. 

The stomach pain started as the world turned back on, the first time she considered she’d even been flung. It started as a surface ache, dull, definitely caused by hitting the dash without her seatbelt. Then her whole body hurt, and she was questioning it again.

Someone was at her door, talking quickly and seemingly concerned. By some miracle, it opened after a few hard pulls. She remembered Henry suddenly and turned to find him out cold, blood leaking down his face. She looked up at the stranger, panic in her face.

The tremors in her voice matched her violent shaking. “My— my brother… get my brother. Hen- needs.. He needs help, someone help him!”

The woman at her door grabbed her arm, intent on helping Piper, saying something that she probably meant to be calming, but Piper couldn’t hear her, a new sensation brought to her attention by the change in the air against her pants and the woman’s gaze as she stood. She looked down in horror at the dark stain ruining her jeans and growing rapidly, intuited that the shaking might not only be the shock as she collapsed against the woman, sobbing, ignoring the gathered crowd.

These people didn’t need to help her. They needed to save Henry. They needed to save her baby.

Chapter Text

Shock is a hell of a drug, the doctor half-joked. Piper was not amused. She was conscious the whole time. At least, she thought she was.

She remembered sensations, chilled to the bone and shivering despite the heat wave bringing some people's shoes to their melting point, acute dizziness and an unshakeable dread. She remembered her eyes leaking, her knees buckling, her nails digging in and cutting her palms. 

She remembered throwing up and a warm sensation down her legs that she believed to be an accident.

She could not remember how her throat got so raw, or being loaded into the ambulance, or being cut open to deliver a healthy albeit premature baby girl. 

She remembered frantically begging them to not call her mother and them doing it anyway because she was 16 and didn't have a say. 

The event that led to the horrible accident slowly came back together as she watched the baby sleep, as she slowly came back into herself enough to sign the birth certificate, as she finally decided, while staring down at that tiny face that wasn't exactly cute and more like an alien that erupted from her stomach, that she was keeping it—her. Olive.

She named the baby Olive. A peace offering to her mother. The metaphorical extension of the olive branch turned physical representation of Kris's biblical ramblings boiling down to a simple ask. Piper just wanted peace.

Kris held Olive first. It was only fitting. The whole pregnancy was about her from the moment she found out. She was excited to have a baby in the house. She wanted it to have a life. She ran Piper’s diet and habits and installed nanny cams when she caught Piper sneaking out because she couldn’t stand not being in charge anymore. Piper was in charge her entire life. Now she felt caged. The baby was a shackle and her mother was her keeper, a role she’d lacked in all through childhood. 

Holding her for the first time was the most scared Piper had ever felt. There were eyes on her. There should’ve been a reaction, some form of tears or joy, something other than the blank stare and tense arms that greeted Olive when she turned out to be fine. She’d come into the world two months early in a frenzy of blood and strangers, and circumstances that could’ve been prevented had she just kept her mouth shut. She was owed a reaction. 

As if that weren’t enough, feeding the baby proved difficult. Some lady talked in her ear about considering buying a pump, and when she was unreceptive—presumably still coming off her shock—they spoke to her mother. Her first duty as a mother failed her. It felt like an omen: the child she never wanted would grow up with her needs neglected by a mother who couldn’t provide.

Piper watched the baby for a while, trying to determine characteristics of herself, characteristics of him. Right now she couldn’t see it. She didn’t think her parents did either. Jake paused when he walked into the room, either surprised by the incubated baby or his daughter’s bruised face from the glass they’d plucked out. She was sure of it. She wanted to be sure of it. Mom didn’t tell him Olive was here, but she saw his heart swell in his chest all the same. 

“How is he?” Kris asked.

Jake looked at her from his place in the doorway, his wonder briefly giving way to confusion, as though the sight of his granddaughter had swept up his thoughts and ran away. It probably had. 

“Awake,” he said finally, “hurt, coherent, a bit confused. He doesn’t remember much after leaving the house. His arm is sprained and his face is cut up pretty bad, but the doctor said he should recover fine and got really lucky. He should be able to go home, but they want him to rest for now.”

His attention returned to the baby as soon as Henry’s condition was out in the open. 

Piper almost laughed out loud at the thought of her brother nearly dying because of a stupid accident after years of explosions, weapons in his face, failed experiments and dangerous people in his space at all times. 

“I want to see him. I’ll be back.” Kris stood up from her chair. 

“Can I come?”

They looked at her like she’d asked in a long forgotten language, like they could be misinterpreting in some way, like she should open her phone and bust out a translator, and she considered it for the sake of being a smartass. 

“Let me talk to someone.”

Piper sighed. Of course her mom needed permission to tell her what to do. It was just another layer of annoying.

While Kris was gone, Jake helped her into a wheelchair that’d been left for her, slow and deliberate, as if she’d break like the totaled car she’d been pulled from, so she could get closer to the baby. She swiped her phone off the dinner tray, a force of habit, stuck her hand into the incubator, and snapped a picture of the baby gripping her finger. She returned the touch, a gentle caress of her thumb over the back of Olive’s hand. Mama’s here. 

Kris returned with a nurse, the same grin painted on both faces. They were hesitant to let her go and tried to convince her to get back in bed. Mom must have forgotten Piper’s experience in wearing patience thin in all the time she spent taking over. Talk of the baby needing her nearby and her stitches requiring her to stay in bed was met with, “I’m already up”, and “why? She’s been fed!”

The volume in the room began to rise. Jake channeled work. This was a project he could manage. His fear for Piper was not the same as theirs. They were worried about her current situation. He was worried about the situation she would put herself in if this didn’t stop. 

Putting on a professional facade, he finally stepped up to the group. “Hey, hey, woah, ladies, please!”

Piper’s jaw tightened, but she quieted down and looked up at her father. 

Jake huffed a sigh. “Thank you. Look, ma’am. I know you’re just doing your job and it’s in her best interest, but I can assure you, if we don’t let her see her brother, my daughter will find a way out of this room and it’ll do her more harm than good. My wife knows this,” he added with a stern glare at Kris. 

Oh good, another fight for later. 

“She just wants to see that he’s alright. Can she go for like, ten minutes? She’ll stay in the chair and be supervised the whole time. Just let her talk to him.”

Something in the nurse’s demeanor changed. Jake was good for smooth-talking his way out of a situation by keeping his voice steady and his shoulders relaxed. Even Piper wasn’t always immune. 

The nurse looked at the clock on the wall, then at her watch, then at Piper. “Ten minutes?”

Piper perked up at her considering tone. “Done. Ten minutes. I’ll come right back.”

She looked between Piper and Jake, then at Kris and finally nodded. “Alright. You have ten minutes. Fifteen max to get there and back. Do not get out of the chair.”

Piper stopped herself from jumping at her victory, a victory cut short by her mother’s disappointed expression. She couldn’t decide if Kris was mad at her or her father, but it didn’t matter because they’d both hear about it as soon as they got a moment alone. 

The trek to Henry’s room was silent and awkward. Piper got the feeling mom was holding back from throwing her out of the wheelchair, though she was sure that was a projection of how she would have felt in her mother’s shoes, an impulse she’d have acted on, a thought that suddenly scared her. 

Henry’s eyes were closed when they entered the room. Kris wheeled Piper up to the bed and moved to the other side where Jake had left his chair. 

Piper snapped a picture of him. She wasn’t sure why, or why her next thought was to open her messages and attach two photos, or why she captioned it, we’re alive, or why she hit send and turned off her phone. 

She was sure, however, that somewhere in Swellview, likely sitting in a classroom at the base of a mountain, a phone just went off, vibrating in the pocket of a man who shouldn’t look now but probably would anyway, and it would feel like a threat. He’d cancel his class and he would stew, because no one threatens him, because no one makes him look bad, and because there’s not a thing he can do about it without outing himself, without making himself look bad. And that was enough for now. 

Piper grabbed her brother’s hand and watched his eyes flutter open, a rush of satisfaction bursting through her veins. “Hey. How you feeling?”

Chapter Text

She was vocal in her dreams. She said all the right things and screamed when her words failed. Her nails dug in and pulled up skin and blood to take with her later. Her tears flowed freely. 

The dreams offered no comfort, just a brutal reminder of everything she had intended to do, things that might’ve remedied the situation somehow. Sometimes it started and ended at a simple conversation, and she still woke up in a cold sweat.

Maybe if he could’ve seen the pain he was causing, he would’ve stopped. He would have apologized before he went too far. He would have gotten as far away from her as possible and offered to have his friend bring her home as soon as he returned.

Or, maybe she’d have been the unfortunate victim of a spoiled, dacryphilic man who had never been told no, with a fixation on her brother and salacity for her mother and no other outlet for that. 

The memory was worse than any nightmare. 

The screaming she woke up to was not her own. The bassinet at her bedside seemed to rattle with the intense cries. Piper patted around until she found her phone on the pillow next to her and squinted in the light to check the time.

10:52 pm. It was unusually early for her to be asleep, though she quickly realized it hadn’t been more than a several-minute doze. She groaned irritably. Day… seven?.. ten? of having Olive home and she had lost all sense of time and every ounce of energy she’d regained in the several weeks that the baby had been held hostage at the hospital. She still didn’t know what her cries meant; she wasn’t sure she ever would. 

Piper’s head pounded when she sat up.  She tossed a burp cloth over her shoulder. “I gotcha,” she crooned, lifting the baby to her chest. She’d been fed not long before; Piper wondered if she wasn’t done spitting it back out.

“It’s such a waste,” she’d complained while Henry held the baby in the kitchen earlier that day, dating her most recent pump with a permanent marker and stuffing it in the freezer. She felt a wave of betrayal every time she caught sight of the formula can in the corner on the counter and wondered if Olive could tell that she wasn’t producing enough on her own.

Henry looked up from Olive’s sleeping face for the first time since he’d picked her up with a lighthearted laugh. “I think she’s too young for the starving children talk.” Piper rubbed her eyes and yawned, too tired to appreciate his sense of humor, though she figured he’d pocket it and use it again later. 

Henry had been glued to Olive since he first saw her, perhaps subconsciously stuck on the connection Piper had gifted them. In trying to find something to like about the bundle in her arms, her attention had shifted to her brother, who was somewhere else in the hospital, as hurt as she was. Olive had been a god-given first name in honor of her mother. 

Her middle name, Henrietta, gave Piper some hope to cling to and Henry a sense of importance. The pedestal she’d held him on for so long finally revealed itself, and he’d stood on that pedestal and cried an ocean of tears, creating an island where it was just him and his niece. There was comfort in knowing she was untouchable there.

The crying continued as Piper walked, bounced, cradled and patted her back. Eventually she came to the conclusion that Olive might still be hungry. She grabbed the empty bottle off the nightstand and slipped out of the room. What she intended to be a quiet trip down the stairs was made easier by the downstairs lights on and some video-sharing reality show playing over the speakers connected to the television. Jake had work in the morning. It couldn’t be him. Kris must have just gotten home. 

Kris greeted them before they made it down the stairs. Piper stopped at the bottom and stared at her mother as she processed. She hardly remembered leaving her room. She was followed into the kitchen. 

Mom talked, Piper responded, but the conversation was meaningless, one she hardly noticed she was having. Her mind was on autopilot, shut down despite the screaming in her ear and the sound of rushing water as Kris cleaned the bottle. 

Kris cleaned the bottle. 

Piper didn’t remember putting it down. 

Kris reached for the formula can. Piper pulled it away from her. “I can do it.”

“Piper, you’re exhausted. Let me help.”

“I don’t want your help.”

Olive screamed. The faucet ran. Kris tapped her nails. Piper had a headache. 

Kris reached again for the formula. Piper pulled it away with more force, coating the counter and her hand in powder. 

Kris huffed. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Because this is your fault!” 

The faucet ran faster. The baby screamed louder. Kris’ face grew redder. 

“It is not my fault you went and got yourself knocked up because you wanted to play house! You did that. I’m trying to support you. I’ve done the mom thing.”

Piper couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her brain woke up abruptly, and her head pounded, and the baby screamed, and the faucet ran, and her skin prickled with irritation, and she thought she’d throw up at the reminder of all the things her mother didn’t know, all the things she wanted to scream in her face. But in a split second, the only thing she fully processed were the words that fell from her mouth. 

“When did you ever do the mom thing? In fact, I think I’ve seen you home more since you found out I was pregnant than I’ve seen you in my entire life! You don’t get to play mom now! This is my baby. You missed your chance.”

Kris stared, eyes wide, jaw slack, twitching with the responses tumbling around in her brain, fighting with emotions she announced with her eyes more than she felt. 

Piper shut the sink off and turned her attention back to the bottle, guilt settling in her chest as she measured scoops and poured in spring water, shook it up and stuck it in the microwave for twelve seconds because mom was too cheap for a bottle warmer and Piper hadn’t allowed herself to think that far ahead. It was the first time she noticed Olive’s head moving and her mouth frantically searching. Her mind had already shut off again by the time Kris excused herself to the bathroom so Piper wouldn’t see her makeup run. 

Back on autopilot, Piper cradled Olive and wiggled the bottle into her mouth. She sat on a stool at the counter and closed her eyes. The tv droned on lowly in the background. Every other sound stopped, or had been replaced by quiet suckling and half-snored baby breaths. 

Then the sound returned with urgency. Screaming baby, a shriek of her name, heavy footsteps running down the stairs. Piper’s eyes flew open and her head shot up as Kris scooped Olive up off the floor with a cry that was undeniably pained. She rubbed Olive’s head, bounced and soothed, checked for an injury, all while Piper sat there dumbfounded and ready to cry as hard as the baby. Under the disappointed gaze of her mother and her father’s arms suddenly around her, she started to. 

Mom ranted and raved about how Olive could’ve died, about how irresponsible Piper was and how she should’ve just taken the help when it was offered. 

Dad held Piper to his chest and argued, as they had all year, about how Kris was being unfair, that babies were typically resilient and it wasn’t like she hadn’t dropped both of her kids on more than one occasion. Henry, drawn out of his room by the commotion, had come down the stairs right on time to hear and be offended by that comment. 

If he remembered the event that had led to the crash, maybe he would have thought the same thing Piper had in that moment, a sickening thought that pooled all of her anxiety and upset in her throat and set off a series of gagging and dry heaving that put everyone on edge moments before she lost her dinner all over Jake. 

What if Olive’s apparent lack of injury went deeper than resilience?

Chapter Text

Piper had her first run in with a creep when she was about six. For the first time since she’d been born, her parents hosted Thanksgiving for the family. It wasn’t new to be around them for the holidays. But to see them in her space was equally invigorating and terrifying. She ran up the stairs with her cousins to show off her room and somehow lost them to her brother putting on a video game with his dumb friends who weren’t even family; why were they there?

Dad’s stepbrother, uncle Mark, slid into the room when the last of the cousins left, while Piper was picking up a knick knack that had been knocked off her desk. She didn’t think about why the door closed until she turned around and saw him standing there. Mom had a rule about not being alone with uncle Mark. She wasn’t sure why, but this broken rule made her stomach turn. She wouldn’t argue with mom about it.

She folded her hands politely in front of her and stood with her feet together and a big smile while uncle Mark complimented her room and sat down on her bed in his day clothes. If it were anyone else, she’d yell. She thought maybe she should, but her mouth felt glued shut. When uncle Mark tapped the empty space at his side, her feet moved automatically. 

He put his arm around her shoulders and asked her to talk about school, her grades, the things she’d been learning, and her mouth moved for those things, and she felt like she’d throw up, like she was doing something wrong and would be punished if mom walked in right now. She also wanted mom to walk in, so bad. His hand felt like it could burn right through her shoulder.

Then uncle Mark asked about her friends. He asked if they behaved for their parents and suggested she take lessons from them, an attack she hadn’t expected, one that kicked up her defenses and need for his approval in the same beat. He asked if their rooms were decorated as nicely as hers. She didn’t know.

He asked if she thought they were pretty, and when he asked, the burning touch dropped to her knee and singed the fabric of her new leggings. He told her she was very pretty, and a pretty girl deserves a special treat. Approval restored.

At the same time, her door handle moved. The door did not. The loud knock that followed accompanied by dad’s voice changed something about uncle Mark. He slouched a little and removed his hand to hide whatever it was she had tried not to notice in his jeans. Piper leapt up to answer the door.

“What are you doing up here, princess? We’re trying to make your plate and you—” Jake stopped at the sight of his brother, who his wife had already expressed her discomfort with, who he’d stuck his neck out for because he was family, alone in a locked room with his child. “Why don’t you go downstairs? Mommy’s waiting.”

Piper wasn’t sure what happened after she left the room. Dad waited for her to make it down the stairs before the door closed. All she knew was uncle Mark didn’t stay for dinner. Dad was examining red knuckles and wiping them with a kitchen towel when he returned to the group after seeing uncle Mark out, and he hovered around her for the rest of the night until the last aunt and uncle left.

Mom and dad argued loudly in the kitchen while Piper removed the pink unicorn comforter from her bed, stained at the end with a deep reddish brown puddle and unusable, and stepped over the stain in the carpet. She nearly tripped down the stairs as she carried it to the basement door to toss down another flight.

Henry had gone to Jasper’s for the night. Dad insisted. They would have a conversation another day. But Piper couldn’t be alone with the fighting anymore. Her chest tightened as she stepped into the kitchen, unnoticed by her parents, mom over the open dishwasher and dad pulling up a full trash bag, yelling over each other.

“Stop it!” A long, drawn out scream ripped from her throat at an intensity that made her cough when it was silent. Tears sprang up. She wasn’t sure it was from the coughing. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I ruined Thanksgiving and uncle Mark couldn’t stay! It’s all my fault! I’m a bad girl! Stop fighting please!”

She sobbed. She couldn’t help it. Mom and dad didn’t see her cry a lot because Piper was angry by nature, and always on the verge of another meltdown and to feel her emotions so openly felt like drowning in a sink. It was ridiculous and shameful and she didn’t know why.

Mom scooped her up when it became too much, holding her arms at her sides as she began to thrash. Mom had gotten better at restraining her. Piper paused when she realized she wasn’t going anywhere. Mom’s eyes also glistened. Her nose also ran, and Piper could tell from the dried lines on her face that she’d been vulnerable for a while.

That was the first of many times mom and dad sat her down on the couch and explained that there were parts of her that needed to remain inaccessible, the first time they asked if anyone had ever had access to those parts of her, asked what uncle Mark was doing in her bedroom and explained that his intentions might not have been pure, once again reiterating that she should never be alone with a grown up she didn’t know very well.

But Jake was a sucker that valued family and second chances, and the moment mom went to Detroit a few years later, Uncle Mark weaseled his way back into the house for an evening.

Piper might’ve picked up that trait.

Piper recalled the incident as she sat in the idle car with the heater on in the chilled autumn morning. The gentle vibrations from the engine kept Olive asleep while she stared tensely at the building looming above, once a beacon of hope now nothing more than a storm cloud of stolen innocence. She glimpsed Schwoz’s car pulling out of the hidden garage and hoped he didn’t see her. She dropped her head, though she knew an unrecognized vehicle in the area would immediately be suspicious. She also knew she could count on him to be oblivious… or at least pretend to be—she wasn’t sure what he knew—if he stopped.

She huffed a sigh of relief when he kept going but the tension didn’t ease. She was going into this alone, exactly as she had that day, with a new weight in her chest, a ten pound weight she wouldn’t take her eyes off of.

“Alright, Olive,” she mumbled, her keys jingling loudly in the silence as she shut off the car, “time to meet your donor.”

Chapter Text

Ray made a mistake. He told Schwoz he made a mistake. Schwoz tried to ask what it was, offer some comfort through counseling, but the words died on his tongue. Schwoz wasn’t there. He hadn’t been around for days and Ray’s foggy brain couldn’t remember why. Nothing could have lifted the dizzying haze from that night. He didn’t remember much.

He remembered drinking a lot and offering a drink to the nearest person, who was there to get an interview with Captain Man for their social media after resigning as the fan club president a while before, trying to shock her audience with news of her return and using his world to do it. He was fine with that. She had a decent presence in the social media world and Ray was aching for attention.

He remembered pouring a few more drinks with a steady but heavy hand and drops on her chin as she laughed and spilled, the weight leaning against his side, her hand on his thigh as she pushed herself upright again.

He remembered thinking, perhaps out loud, about how much she’d grown up, how adult she’d always been, mature for her age despite her temper. He remembered that, for a moment, everything made sense.

He remembered how nothing made sense when the weight of what he’d done hit him the next morning. The pit in his stomach made up for the hangover he couldn’t get, the one she no doubt had. How had he convinced himself that any part of that night had been a good idea? How had a few innocent gestures turned into what they did? Why had he drank so much when he knew she was coming over in the first place? Why had he allowed himself to just be alone with her to begin with? Why had he let it all slip his mind until breakfast?

It had been over a month before Schwoz realized he hadn’t heard much from Piper at all. She had expressed interest in being an older mentor for the kids as someone who had previously navigated life with Captain Man, and she was nowhere to be found. He asked Ray.

Ray sent a text, one that took a few tries. Are you okay? Backspace. Can we talk? Backspace. Sorry for… backspace. How are you? Send.

It was hours before he got a response in the form of a picture. He stared at it for a long time. Captain Man wasn’t scared of anything. Ray Manchester never knew how much fear two little lines could strike in a grown man. He was ashamed of his response when he sent her a thousand dollars and texted, Abort it.

He was even more ashamed when his defenses raised and his brain tried to make it funny. Abort mission.

Another few days passed where he thought things could be normal again once she got over her loss. They could talk, put things back how they were, and take that night to the grave because no one needed to know.

And then she replied. I’m keeping it.

Ray thought he might pass out. He begged her not to tell Henry, and when she didn’t respond, blocked her number, blocked any of her social media that he was aware of, and blocked out the memory with alcohol until Schwoz cut him off and locked it up, fearing that Ray would hurt himself or someone else and not knowing why.

Ray bought more months later, feeling sorry for himself for some unrelated reason. He dropped the sobriety that Schwoz worked hard to help him maintain and took a bottle of everclear to the face.

When he was drunk enough to justify it, and self-pitying enough to think about it, he unblocked Piper’s number, intent on giving her a piece of his mind about exactly what had happened.

Then, just as soon as the thought appeared, it vanished. A text from Henry distracted him, the first he’d received since before that night, like he’d sensed Ray’s ill intentions through the screen. He probably knew everything. He was just waiting for Ray to hit a low point.

How could he know Ray would be at a low point? Someone else had to know. They were feeding him information, giving him all the ammo he needed to put an end to their friendship for good. It had to be Schwoz. Schwoz knew he’d been hiding something. He knew he’d made a mistake. Was he out to get him too?

Ray’s heart pounded as he opened the text.

“Sry I missed ur call. Had a thing. Call back tmrw :)”

Ray furrowed his eyebrows. When did he call? He opened his call log and checked the time. Ten minutes ago— he realized it was time to put the bottle away.

Ray’s paranoia only seemed to grow from there. When Henry answered for the kids when they needed him, after ignoring more of Ray’s calls, he spiraled. Schwoz ran around like a headless chicken trying to keep him occupied.

Then Henry showed up, and he was happy to see everyone, willing to help out, stuck around for some fun and even stayed in the area with a promise to track down Drex and take him out. The weight in Ray’s chest lifted. He felt like he could breathe again for the first time in months.

And just when he’d finally relaxed, just when everyone could finally tell that his calm demeanor was less of a facade, his phone dinged mid-lesson. He laughed it off, tried to return to the topic, just for a reminder to go off a few minutes later. It scratched at his brain, picked at every cell and each nerve until he finished his sentence.

He opened his phone, planned to silence it and check who was messaging him, and suddenly remembered that he unblocked a number on a vulnerable night alone.

Ray checked the time and dismissed the kids for lunch. Their suspicion and confusion formed a cloud over the room, which was ignored in favor of hiding in the back room until he was sure they’d all left. Maybe longer. His head swam with questions.

She was with Henry? What had she told him? How did he get hurt? The baby…

He thought he might throw up. Not only had she kept it like she said she would, she made sure he knew she did.

At the moment, the small face barely had notable features. It was just a thing made up of various organic shapes and tiny lines. He could still deny any relation. He could convince himself she was nuts.

Maybe she had another encounter with someone else her age around the same time… but that would be all too convenient, wouldn’t it? Maybe she had, and now she was in need of some cash and turning to a source she knew she could blame, who she knew had the money to make it happen.

But that wasn’t Piper and he knew it.

Ray knew Schwoz had an appointment when he woke up. He also knew the kids wouldn’t be around unless there was an emergency. He’d banned them from weekend work until he could figure out the mess he’d made. So he thought nothing of taking a bowl of cereal into the main room in his shorts to watch the news, a decision he immediately regretted.

Piper sat on the stairs by the side door, cradling the whining baby and trying to wiggle a bottle into its mouth. He wasn’t sure how to proceed, or if he should say anything, or how to react when she glanced up at him and immediately turned her surprised face to the door behind her and tightened her hold on the bundle.

There was silence, broken by the growing gurgling that was quickly becoming a cry, as if the baby could sense the tension.

Then Piper snapped, “go put some clothes on!”

Ray quickly backed up into the hallway, watching the door close behind him. He stood with his back to the wall for a minute, jaw agape, just processing. The only thought he could muster was that her tone was hers alone. Piper was back.

Chapter Text

Fleeting thoughts came and went as Ray crossed the room, now decent, and took his stance in front of her.

Piper had an outfit tucked away in the back of her closet, tied up inside a plastic store bag, an outfit she swore off nine months ago. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t wash it, or put it away, or drop it in the Goodwill bag that mom would inevitably throw into a dumpster four months later. Maybe she thought it’d just…work, again. It would do its job and keep her hidden from the outside world. Instead, the thought of it put her organs on display.

She sat in front of Ray in an oversized college sweater and cargo pants, wondering if he could see right through her, if any outfit would ever truly feel safe. She also wondered, as she forced herself to meet his eyes, if her daughter’s gaze would make her feel unsafe someday; she could already see that her eyes wouldn’t be Piper’s in the small shapes forming on her face.

She wondered, as Ray stood before her, his hands on his hips with an unreadable expression, how things could have changed so drastically for her in the almost year since she’d seen him, how he could stand there with a Captain Man scowl and be the same person she’d met when she was eight—the person she’d looked up to long before. The thought made her sick. So much for a hero.

Piper sat on a line somewhere between self-destruction and self-preservation, a line that wobbled and vibrated until it blurred enough to become one indistinguishable motivation for being there. She knew the purpose of the visit, but the drive to see it through was lost on her.

She watched him, her jaw clenched while she determined the best next step. The thought was laughable. The best course of action would have been to turn around and go home before entertaining the thought of walking up to the Man’s Nest, an incredible feat of its own. She picked the lock on the school door, fearing Olive’s safety in the tube, and by some miracle bypassed Schwoz’s hair-trigger security system and climbed the stairs.

Ray still seemed to be processing the cruel joke that fate had played him. Years and years of turning up the charm, with very few serious relationships and no kids that he could prove or was made aware of, narrowed down to his most manic act of depravity yet—the baby sister of the kid he practically raised. Were it anyone else, he’d have laid them out on the pavement. Now, he couldn’t gauge whether or not he deserved the same treatment.

His eyes flitted between her and the bundle in her arms, a hint of hesitance in his face that could only be seen by familiar eyes. For a tense moment, the only sounds in the room were the electrical humming of every light and appliance that was meant to be dormant background noise, and Olive’s heavy breathing as she sucked down the bottle in the way she occasionally did, the way that earned her the nickname “hungry hungry hippo” from Henry, which was immediately shot down.

“What are you doing here?” He might’ve spoken much quicker than Piper registered, exhausted and barely clean. 

She’d showered for the sole purpose of not letting him see her at her lowest. She’d opted to hold the baby instead of tucking her burp cloth under the bottle and leaving her in the car seat to show him how much she’d bonded with the baby; she wasn’t sure that was the case. 

“Sitting on the stairs,” she deadpanned, mildly offended by his tone. “Apparently it’s the only way to get ahold of you now.”

The slight shift in his body language told her she’d gotten lucky. He hadn’t changed his phone number in an attempt to run. He just ignored her passive-aggressive taunting and probably tossed the damn phone out the window so he could.

He fixed his gaze on the baby like he wasn’t sure what to make of her. “I thought I sent you money to take care of her.”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“This isn’t what I had in mind.”

“Me either.”

He could only guess what that meant.

Piper removed the bottle from Olive’s mouth and slung a burp cloth over her shoulder like it was nothing, just another part of a routine she was too young for. Ray recalled Henry ranting and pacing across the Man Cave floor when she wore a face full of caked-on makeup at just nine years old. He recalled Schwoz saying, “So she likes to play dress up? She is a child.” and Henry replying, “Exactly! She’s too young for it!” and thinking that Henry was too young to know what too young was.

Ray spoke again when Piper started patting the baby’s back. “So where’d you get Olive? That your grandmother’s name or something?”

“Came to me.” She wasn’t interested in opening that can of worms with him. She felt like she should offer him something as he stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his feet. “I didn’t tell Henry.”

A wince flashed across his face. He hadn’t forgotten the pictures. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

Ray ignored her tone. “How is he?”

“Fine.”

The doctor Kris dragged Henry to against his will had cleared him to return to work. Ray didn’t deserve to know that. Piper didn’t understand Henry’s resistance at first, until she remembered that he hadn’t properly had so much as a physical since he was about fifteen because he was too busy.

Ray huffed at the brevity of her statement. He sure didn’t look fine. But…how long ago was that? He couldn’t remember. “I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

Piper raised an eyebrow. “What’s that have to do with me?”

“I wonder.”

Her eyes narrowed. She just told him that she hadn’t told Henry anything. What had she done to deserve that? Before she could respond, she felt a splash of warmth hit her neck. Olive missed the mark entirely. Her jaw dropped in the moment it took her to process what happened. She moved the baby to her other shoulder and wiped at the dripping puddle with the burp cloth. Her nose scrunched at the smell.

Ray crossed his arms and looked away at the moment she realized it was in her hair. It was too late to save her dignity. He wasn’t sure if he should help or not. He didn’t know if it was in his place to ask to hold the baby or if it was the right thing to do.

“Why are you here?” he asked again.

Piper’s glare was poison. She laid Olive unbuckled in the car seat and left her to her little noises while she wiped the rest of the stain into the shoulder of her sleeve and ran the cloth through the end of her ponytail. “I already told you, it’s the only way I could get ahold of you.”

“But why did you need to? What was so important that you couldn’t just call me? What the hell do I do if someone walks in here? What do I tell them?” There was a frustrated edge to his voice that he felt entitled to. 

“Maybe you’ll think about that next time!” Piper snapped. 

Ray paused while he processed the…accusation? It felt like an accusation. For her to insinuate that he could be monstrous enough— his mouth moved faster than his brain.

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t have a part in this, Piper. It takes two, you know. It’s not like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

Piper’s face dropped, shock in every exhausted line. His words hit her with the force of a hurricane. Did he really think that? How the hell was she supposed to respond? She knew coming here was a mistake, but to hear her mother’s words out of his mouth, of all people. Had he really diluted it down to her fault? Had she convinced herself that it wasn’t?

It scared her that she didn’t remember something that was still so fresh in her mind just a few short months ago, the vague understanding of what leads to a baby in the first place and some unsettling sensations she forced away—from familiar scents and sounds to full-blown nightmares that disappeared upon awakening—were her only grip on the reality of the situation. The real problem for her was that at the time, everything was fine until the moment it suddenly wasn’t. She remembered laughing one minute, and then she remembered trying to hide in the space between her skull and her brain sometime later.

She must have taken too long to respond. It was enough time for Ray to catch up with himself and shift uncomfortably. He didn’t apologize. Piper didn’t expect him to. He switched his weight to the opposite foot and that was the most she’d see of his regret. Not that it mattered to her. The damage was done. There was no point in sticking around. 

“What’s so important?” he asked again, softer this time.

Piper shook her head and started pulling the buckles out from under Olive. “Forget it. This was a dumb idea.”

Ray’s defenses shot through the roof again. “Seriously? Why go through the trouble then? What is it? Do you need something? Money? A break? You want me to drop her off at the fire station or something? What do you want?”

Piper’s head snapped up as the last buckle latched in place. “I don’t need anything from you.” She hooked her arm under the car seat and started for the stairs at a brisk pace.

“Come on, Piper!”

Piper whipped around as Olive started to whine. “I just wanted some help, alright? I came here because I wanted help understanding her.”

Ray took a few steps toward her, his arms out at his sides. “Well how can I help you? I’m not a mindreader and I don’t have much experience with babies outside of rescue and delivery.”

“I don’t need help with the baby! We’re doing just fine. But half of her DNA is yours and I don’t know how to deal with that part!”

“Get some therapy? Since I’m such a bad guy that you can’t ‘handle’ it.”

“That’s not—” Piper inhaled and swallowed an angry growl. Olive’s whining turned shrill, a few beats away from a fussy cry. She wasn’t used to the loud conversation and Piper blamed herself for letting it get this far. “Let me know when it gets through your dense brain.”

Somehow, she knew that he knew what she meant. He had to.

She didn’t hear his response. As she turned away from him and headed back down through the school, her mind buzzed with barely contained rage. It was all she could do to keep herself present for Olive’s sake. Walking to the car, she was reminded of the trouble she’d be in when Kris realized she’d stolen her keys back.

Olive calmed down once they were on the road again. Piper thought so, anyway. She couldn’t remember most of the drive home. A stoplight here. “You want another drink?” A gas station there. *Ding* “Message from Ray: How are you?” A liquor store on the corner. “It’s not like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

Then she was home, and nothing was any clearer.

Chapter Text

It had been ages since Piper had seen a friend on purpose. She ducked them in grocery stores and outlet malls once she started showing, and was lucky enough that the day Marla caught her, she’d been wearing an oversized sweater she’d stolen from her mom, one she knew didn’t belong to her dad.

Upon returning home, she’d realized her conversation with Ray had been almost entirely one-sided and too emotionally charged. Was there such a thing as being too upset about a situation like this? Whatever the case, she decided to put it behind her. She was fine without the stress. It could linger all it wanted. She knew a mistake when she made it.

Piper had a binder. Once she was sure she had to keep the baby, she started planning around it, thinking about all the ways she could maintain her life and career and still care for a kid. She had done her research. The binder contained everything she could’ve needed for the baby, things she hadn’t even made a registry for because Olive came before the baby shower, which was promptly canceled in the wake of the accident. She also had a chore chart, a hygiene tracker, and a long list of probiotics she should be taking, all of which had been forgotten about and the binder promptly ignored.

Piper was struggling. Anyone with eyes could see it. For the first time in her life, she had very little control of her surroundings. The bed was unmade and smelled like sweat and thrown-up formula, and there were stains to back it up. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten a single load of laundry washed, folded, and put away in a day, or her showers had exceeded ten minutes. Her floor was just a path with baby stuff and her stuff scattered about.

Kris was more absent than ever. Jake tried to be more present. He was fighting for his life, trying to keep Kris happy and Piper afloat at the same time. Kris continued to dote on Henry to his discomfort after his concussion had gone away, and now that he’d had time to spend with the baby, as well as everyone else, Piper figured it wouldn’t be long before he left for Dystopia again. She’d be alone again soon, and she couldn’t admit to herself that she wasn’t ready for it.

The bond still hadn’t taken. She knew how to care for Olive, keep her alive, and, for the most part, deal with her crying; part of her knew she was doing it well. But there was another part, a louder part of her brain that told her this was it. She wasn’t going to feel any emotional fulfillment from parenting. She was just going to have to see it through and hope she didn’t turn out like Kris. It almost didn’t seem fair.

Piper asked for a night to herself. She needed a chance to pull herself together, get back out there, and find the person she’d lost over the year. Jake promised to watch the baby so she could have that time. In her excitement to get out for the night, she found the strength to clean most of her room and get some laundry going. She brought her dishes downstairs, stacked the dishwasher, and even took a broom to her floor. Somehow, the laundry made it up the stairs. The little things put her life back together for a moment. A quick shower and a cute outfit sealed the deal.

“Hey dad, can I borrow forty dollars?” Piper asked as she grabbed Jake’s wallet off the counter and pulled a few twenties. Forty, sixty, who cares?

“Sure thing, sweetie!” The response came a few seconds too late to say no from the direction of the bathroom.

Piper pocketed the cash and pulled out her phone. She had a flood of texts from Marla, Jana, and a few others as excited as she was to be out of the house again. She ignored them to look herself over in her camera, ruffling her hair a bit to appear more casual and less tryhard, and fixing her lipstick.

Kris and Henry sat on the couch. They were engrossed in one of those talk shows where people fought over paternity and took lie detector tests for the sake of incriminating themselves on national television. Piper wondered how much of those shows were real. She doubted any of them were. It also felt a bit like a dig; they’d been questioning Olive’s paternity for some time, and she was sure Jake had it down, which scared her, but also reinstated her daddy’s little girl status in a way she found comfort in. It wasn’t wrong to take advantage of his comfort, was it?

Piper turned around to find her mother’s eyes as she leaned over the island, looking her over disapprovingly. “Where do you think you’re going?” It wasn’t malicious, but it wasn’t curious. It was calm in a chilling way, as though she’d been caught doing something she knew she shouldn’t be.

“Out?” Piper’s inflection, she immediately realized, could’ve been less hostile. She hated feeling so on edge in her own home. It was weird to her that Kris was home right now to begin with, or at all since she had started worrying that Piper was going to abort. She had also lost sight of her social life somewhere along the line, and apparently, her other partner she never talked about but they all acknowledged as such. It was weird to think they had anything in common besides outward appearances anymore.

“Out?” Kris echoed, her head tilted forward as she awaited details.

“Going to hang out with some friends.” Piper shrugged. Her tone remained defensive and her body language picked up on it. Her arms crossed against her will. It wasn’t meant to be a challenge, but it was.

Kris hummed, her gaze falling to the counter for a moment. “And what friends might those be?”

Piper’s eyes narrowed. That was a low blow no matter what direction it was spun in. Piper had a history of struggling friendships due to her outbursts of anger, which her mother knew fully well. Her relationship with Jana was even more complicated, but Kris didn’t know the specifics of her plans enough to know that she was even on the roster.

The other possibility, and the demeaning question she knew was more in the direction her mother was headed, was a question of whether or not she was going to get herself knocked up again.

Jake walked into the kitchen to find them staring each other down, and Henry nervously biting his nails as he watched them from the couch, his brows furrowed in a way that told Jake he was lost in thought. Piper’s jaw was clenched. She inhaled slowly, putting her coping skills from junior anger management to good use. But she’d taken too long to answer.

“You realize you have responsibilities to take care of here, right?” Kris straightened her posture, jerking her head back to gesture to the baby sleeping in the bouncer that Henry had previously been rocking with his foot.

It took everything in Piper’s power not to call her a hypocrite then and there. Where was she when Piper needed her? Where was she when Henry got a job and dad’s work had pulled him away on business several times? She was out at work or with some dude she called her tennis instructor, which she’d heard dad complain about several times over despite his own complicated relationships with his ex and the neighbor. Sometimes they didn’t see her for days. Other times they were locked in her room while their parents threw ragers and their stuff went missing, leaving messes she and Henry were left to clean, which was often left to an unfair wheel chart, and more so completely left to her when Henry stopped coming home for days at a time before she learned his secret. If Kris thought she had room to talk, that room gave her no arm space.

“Dad said he’d watch her for a night,” Piper finally said as she dropped her gaze to the floor with a clenched jaw and stepped around the island, starting for the door.

“It’s not dad’s responsibility.” Kris followed her, determined to get the last word in. “It’s yours. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Kris—” Jake started, only to be cut off.

“This isn’t about you anymore, Piper. You gave all that up when you decided you were an adult. This is your consequence. Remember? I don’t get to do the mom thing anymore. This is your kid.”

Piper froze. She’d forgotten about that conversation. She was so stunned she forgot they were having a conversation.

Henry stood up abruptly. “You know, we have a responsibility to Piper, too.” Henry never liked having all the attention on him. He felt awkward and started stumbling over his words. It was as appreciated as it was surprising that he would speak out of turn, though maybe it was easier without the weight of a secret on his shoulders. “When’s the last time you’ve seen her this put together? I don’t think I have since I got here…no offense Pipes. It’s just one night, mom.”

Piper looked at the floor. She had changed, drastically. She knew it. They all did. Why was Kris so hellbent on keeping her that way?

“Stay out of it,” Kris warned, turning back to Piper. “Take your kid and go upstairs,” She held her hand out, “and give me your phone.”

Piper blinked, suddenly remembering her phone in her hand and stuffing it in her pocket. “No! No way! You can’t take my phone! You just said you’re not doing the mom thing!”

Kris stepped closer. “No, Piper, you said that. I’m still your mother and you’re still a child. Hand it over.” She opened and closed her palm a few times, as if the gimme gesture would affect her decision.

There was a whine in the corner where Henry had sat back down like the obedient child he’d always been, no doubt from the pitch raising in the room. He started rocking the bouncer again and fishing for the pacifier that had fallen from the baby’s mouth. It was like she could sense the tension. Anyone who walked in at that moment probably could. 

“I’m not giving you my phone! I paid for it with my own money that I earned! It’s not your property. Fuck off!”

Piper’s arm swung out defensively the moment Kris decided she was no longer her own person and tried to reach for the phone herself. The force behind the shove was enough to send Kris back and nearly topple her over the couch. Piper wasn’t sure where the strength had come from or why her heart was suddenly beating out of her chest. She wasn’t even sure if the last part of her argument had come out of her mouth until Kris straightened up and cracked her across the face for the second time over the year. This one felt deserved.

It also pulled Henry immediately away from the baby. He grabbed his mother like she needed to be restrained a little too late, shouting a string of woah and stop several times after the moment had passed, a stress response he’d had for a very long time in which he grew irritable if he couldn’t finish. Jake stood apart from all the chaos and made it clear he’d chosen a side without ever verbalizing it. He’d go to Piper’s room later to assure her he didn’t agree with the treatment. But he wouldn’t do anything to stop it.

Olive’s whines rapidly evolved into a screaming cry. She didn’t have a normal volume, it seemed. Piper often found herself covering her ears when the baby was in a state of upset not deterred by milk, burping, or a diaper change. It was something they had in common and something she despised babies having no control over.

All the signs of hostility ebbed away as Kris fought Henry off of her. Piper stormed over to the bouncer, held the baby to her chest, wrapped the small blanket around her waist and headed for the stairs, ignoring the stinging in her face and Henry yelling her name. She texted her friends to cancel their plans and turned off her phone for probably the first time since she bought it, leaving them to wonder what changed. 

Calming Olive down seemed harder than it usually was. Her doctor told her that babies feed off the emotions around them and that at some point, she’d need to deal with her own stress to deal with a crying spell. Piper didn’t trust the doctor. Why would she? The same people who denied her the ability to take care of the problem as soon as she was aware of it because she was underage didn’t deserve her trust.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Henry sat back down on the couch, his hands in his lap, eyes on the abandoned bouncer, listening to the stupid show his mother had put on as some woman had a meltdown over her infidelity. He watched his mother out of the corner of his eye. His mother watched him back. Jake left. He was done arguing.

Something stirred in his brain. He felt like he was waking up for the first time to the last serious conversation he’d had with Piper from the moment she had come down the stairs and yelled out to their father. She hadn’t said much, but there was something…something he wasn’t sure he’d heard in a while, and it was subtle enough that he almost didn’t catch it and still wasn’t sure what it was.

He turned his eyes back to the television as a wide set of baby blue eyes and rosy, chubby cheeks were displayed behind the host. The baby on screen reminded him of Olive. Most babies did, but this one down to the dark hair…

Henry sat forward a bit, his elbows on his knees. The dark hair wasn’t a Hart trait. It wasn’t a Bilsky trait either, even though dad wanted to believe that so bad. Britney and Bysh had the darkest hair in their family, and even then, it was lighter than whatever Olive had going on. Henry’s hair had darkened over time, but it was more Jake’s color now, not the near black that lined Olive’s head in a growing layer of fuzz.  He wasn’t sure he knew anyone Piper’s age that she was close to with hair that dark. He wasn’t sure she was close to anyone these days.

Can I borrow forty dollars?

Henry blinked. Olive’s eyes were darker than Piper’s, a detail most people wouldn’t notice. Henry hadn’t noticed himself until a few days ago while Piper was preparing for a doctor’s appointment and stressing about shots. She had rubbed the back of Olive’s head and murmured, “You think they’d be able to tell if I dropped her?”

Can you at least tell me how old he is?

Henry remembered the night Olive had fallen from her exhausted arms. He remembered being drawn out of his room by cries that seemed to calm down a lot quicker than a baby with a head injury should cry; the yelling from his parents seemed inconsequential from there. He remembered Piper being horrified with herself and staring at Olive in Kris’ arms like she was some kind of freak. She had yet to look at her with any love. He hadn’t missed the disdain, though.

Forty.

Henry was back in the car, staring shellshocked at the coffee table. He knew those eyes right down to the shape. He stared at Piper and muttered, “Hmm?”

Kris glanced at him, the signs of distress evident on his face.

He’d grown up with those eyes.

“Henry?”

The fluff of black hair, the little thing that had come out healthy despite the impact he’d seen Piper take to the dashboard…

He couldn’t breathe.

Kris stood up. “Henry? Honey?”

Forty.

She had repeated it with too much conviction.

The screeching sound of tires, the metal on metal, shattering glass.

Henry’s force field flew up around him as Kris approached, the coffee table sliding away as he curled into himself, bracing for impact.

Kris yelled his name. He screamed in response, his hands flying to his ears. It was so loud.

He was scared. He was dying. He was angry. His force field flickered on and off until the living room reappeared in his blurred vision, tears falling from his face onto his legs. The first moment she could, Kris sat down next to him, putting her nursing skills to the test in an attempt to calm his panic.

Henry wondered if he knew. He wondered what had happened to bring that upon his sister. He blamed himself. He mumbled incoherently for a while and let his mother soothe him. It was all he could do to stay sane.

Piper barely heard the sounds of several slamming doors and unspeakable commotion downstairs through Olive’s cries. It didn’t seem like fear anymore. She wouldn’t latch or take formula. She didn’t respond to a change. She didn’t have a fever, or so much as a gas bubble. Piper tried changing her onesie. Sometimes textures got the best of her, too. It didn’t help. She attempted swaddling, scratching potential itches, rubbing out any possible pains. She just wouldn’t let up. Piper grew more agitated the longer the night went on. Her plans had been cancelled, plans she’d had for days; she couldn’t find her earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones, her arms were tired, and she was exhausted to the point of tears.

Eventually, she put Olive down on the bed and let her cry long enough to rub her face and groan in the direction of the closet. Then she leaned over Olive with a look that probably didn’t help at all, her eyebrows furrowed and her whole face tense. 

“What do you want?” she growled through her teeth. “What could you possibly need from me?! I’ve done everything, alright? I’ve done everything I can! What am I missing?”

She felt ridiculous as she straightened up again. Of course she wouldn’t get any answers from the baby. She couldn’t talk. It was the hardest part of the whole deal, if Piper was being honest with herself. No amount of anger management had prepared her for this.

“You’re ruining my life! I hate you! I hate you, I fucking—”

She picked up a pillow and screamed into it until her lungs felt like they’d collapse. Every action only spurred on Olive’s cries. She was sure her mother was in the other room complaining to herself. She thought for a terrifying moment that she could muffle Olive’s cries with the very pillow she was holding and chucked it across the room as soon as the thought entered her mind. She hit herself in the head, looking for something else to take her anger out on. She was so overstimulated that it was hard to think beyond the screaming, and eventually, she collapsed in the corner of her room while Olive writhed on the mattress and potentially damaged her throat. Piper wasn’t sure of anything.

As she sobbed into her knees, she caught a glimpse of something red peeking out from under her dresser. Her binder. All of her research, all of the promises she made to herself were stuck in there. Maybe it had the answers she didn’t, if she could focus on it.

There had to be something wrong. It was equally as likely as it wasn’t. Maybe Olive hated her too. Maybe she was screaming her words back at her with more determination. She wanted the world to know that Piper was a bad mother. She could probably be heard a planet over.

Piper desperately flipped through her notes for any sign of anything she hadn’t tried. It seemed hopeless. She was overtired. It was the only explanation. She was overtired and trying so hard to keep herself awake. What would her parents do in this situation? 

Despite every part of her body telling her to stay put, Piper eventually gave up and returned to the bed. She wiped her eyes and picked Olive up with the same resignation she’d seen on her mom’s face after every meltdown. As she lay down, she pressed Olive’s ear to her heart and rubbed her back, focusing on steadying her breathing. She murmured apologies into her little head and forced down another wave of tears.

Piper failed to notice Olive’s cries losing steam little by little. She thought about her mother and how things had gone so backwards over wanting a night out. She thought about her father and how he’d stopped defending her somewhere along the way, wondered if she deserved his defense at all. She’d done this to herself.

She didn’t want her baby to feel the way she felt. She didn’t want to be hated and she didn’t want Olive to feel hated either. She was so small and innocent. She asked for as much of this as Piper had. That hadn’t occurred to her in a while. Olive was the most innocent person in a room at any given time. She was only a victim of Piper’s malfunction. 

As the cries finally died down, Piper felt a wave of relief and a deep sense of gratitude. She was grateful that Olive was too young to remember her outbursts, grateful that she’d relaxed. She her heaving breaths evened out slowly and Piper found herself drifting with the baby on her chest. She opened her eyes, begging herself to find the strength to put Olive in her bassinet. Instead, she rolled onto her side and moved herself as close to the side of the mattress as she could, placing Olive carefully in the middle. She couldn’t roll yet, but Piper couldn’t be too safe. 

She pulled a blanket up no further than her waist and cradled Olive at her side. For once, the sleeping face felt like her own, not attached to anyone or anything but the fragile little doll in her arms, and it felt like peace had finally offered her a hand for a moment.

Chapter Text

The car seat by the door was loud, not with cries. Olive had discovered her voice. She cooed through her wake windows, which occupied more and more of each day. Piper felt conflicted the first time she slept through the night. What should have been a night of relief and recharge was daunting; Piper woke up every half hour to check breathing. Then she wished she’d taken it for what it was. Olive’s irregular sleep patterns were wearing her down again.

Olive wasn’t ready for the autumn air. It was warm for late autumn, but she wasn’t old enough to regulate her temperature yet. She was in the window to start. Piper referred to her research as she grabbed her keys and a small blanket.  She would continue covering Olive’s hands with little round mittens and her feet with booties until the doctor said otherwise. 

Henry walked briskly down the stairs and placed his hands on his hips as his feet hit the landing. “Alright, I’m ready.”

Piper raised an eyebrow at him. “Ready?”

“Yeah, for the appointment.”

She blinked and rubbed her ear with a knuckle, unsure if she heard him right. She couldn’t have. Henry was not invited. The only person she had told about the appointment was her father, who had invited her fishing at Lake Swellview before she had time to think up another excuse. Henry must have heard.

“I think I can manage,” she deadpanned. 

Piper was never more comfortable with her family’s absence than after Olive’s last doctor visit. She had considered asking her mother to join. Kris had dealt with loads of appointments involving vaccines and, at the time, Piper had been checked out, a detail not unnoticed by the doctor. The nurse had struggled with the needle, apologized for being new, and ran off to find a more experienced nurse, who winced at the effort it took to pierce Olive’s skin and made a note. Olive had shrieked in response to the needle and stopped as quickly as the nurse retracted it. Piper wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole with every suspicious glare and unanswerable question. She called it luck when CPS wasn’t called, and stupidity when the doctor ruled it a potential skin condition, something she wanted to believe herself.

“I know.” Henry nodded, grinning as he headed for the door. 

Piper furrowed her eyebrows. “You don’t have to come.”

“I know,” he repeated as he opened the front door and flashed a tight-lipped smile.

There was no time to argue. She huffed and hooked her arm under the handle of the car seat. “Fine. But I’m driving.”

Henry rolled his eyes without argument.

Piper placed the car seat into the rear-facing base, wiggled it until it clicked, and made faces at Olive as she adjusted the seat mirror and installed the clip-on roller shade. Olive smiled wider with every face Piper made. Piper tucked a blanket up under her chin and set up a bottle, cooing in response to Olive’s babbles, increasingly aware of Henry watching through the side mirror.

"What?!" she finally snapped when Henry was still staring at her as she sat behind the wheel.

Henry only seemed to realize how weird the behavior was in that moment. He shrugged and looked out the window, grasping onto the grip handle out of reflex. "Nothing." He looked around, his eyes scanning driveways and front lawns to avoid Piper's squinting glare.

Gentle snoring drifted from the back seat two blocks into the drive. Piper could see Olive's sleeping face in the seat mirror, her cheeks filled out and rosy, her tongue poking slightly through her lips like a milk-drunk kitten. She was growing slowly, finally the size she was expected to be at birth, if a little chunky. She still scrunched every time Piper picked her up; she'd rejoiced in finally feeling well enough to get one on video, a moment she shared with her followers with a happy dancing flower blocking out Olive's face.

Kris was the only person to comment on Piper's change of heart. "I knew you'd come around!" It almost made her crawl right back into her shell. But Piper knew things were different now, as if her whole brain had changed overnight. Olive needed her, and Piper needed to be better for her.

Meanwhile, Jake had begun to step up as Kris slowly disappeared again. Piper had moments to herself. She wondered if she maybe had too many. She could shower again, breathe for moments at a time. She'd even gotten her room in order. The pile of laundry she left by the door had disappeared in the hours since she'd placed it there and been returned to her bed during a short period where Jake had passed the baby off to Henry. Whenever her phone screen lit up, with a call from her father or just a notification, a photo of Jake sleeping on the couch with Olive loafed up on his chest shone back at her; she printed, framed, and hung it on her wall. She'd never been more grateful for him.

Piper chewed on her lip and white-knuckled the steering wheel as she pulled into the parking lot. More concerning was the calm that Henry was shrouded in as he got out and grabbed the car seat with practiced ease. Henry was not a calm person. Anyone who knew him knew that, and Piper most of all.

All her thoughts fell into place on the walk to the elevator: the weird behavior, the insistence to show up, his too big smile as he walked down the stairs and the eerie calmness over him now—Henry knew, a thought she had refused to entertain but should've picked up on in the weeks that followed her meltdown.

The waiting room was agony. Olive woke up with the lack of motion. Henry was in her face with a rattle, and every second that ticked by pressed against Piper's skull with a building pressure that made the clock an enemy. Every nerve in her arms vibrated to throw a punch, at her own head or Henry's. Her legs bounced and her attention was split between the too-loud rattle in the silence of the office and the impending vaccines and Henry way too close to Olive's face, as if he were in her own face. She almost pushed him off the chair.

"Olive?" The light voice of a pediatric nurse called from the door she held open with her foot. Piper stood up instantly and took a step before realizing she didn't even have the car seat. Henry picked up the slack and paused behind her, gesturing for her to move. The nurse gave them a kind smile and ushered them to the baby scale. It looked like the seat of a swing her father put together and she had thrown out the next day. Were Olive rolling, that thing would not hold her.

Piper held her breath as Olive was lifted from her car seat and placed on the scale. She was instantly pulled from her thoughts, and the scale, as the nurse looked at Henry and inquired, "Dad?"

"Ew! No! Gross!" she bellowed. They'd been going to that pediatrician their whole lives. She tried not to think about the fact that she was still a patient there as Henry grew flustered and stuttered out an unheard response for the first time that day. "That's Henry!"

"Oh, gosh I'm so sorry. Wow! You changed your hair! And you've gotten big! You must've been like… this big when I last saw you." The nurse held a hand at shoulder height. He hadn't been that height since he was fourteen. She grew quiet as she looked over the scale and made a note on her clipboard. Piper peeked over her shoulder to see subtraction and an estimated number. "Good news! She's gained about eight pounds. That's a bit quick, but exactly what we're looking for for this little lady."

Piper rolled her eyes and plucked Olive off the scale as soon as she was allowed to. Henry carried the car seat to the room as the nurse pointed it out and then paused at her station and turned to Piper as she started to follow her brother. "You still need to set an appointment for yourself. You want to be seen now?"

Piper grimaced and shook her head, her jaw clenched, her grip on Olive tightened slightly. "I'm fine."

The nurse nodded. "I understand. Your OB keeps calling us though and we don't have the information she's looking for. Make yourself an appointment there if you won't make one here. You should make one here too, though. Mom will watch the baby for a day, won't she?"

Piper inhaled through her nose, her eyes trained on the ceiling for a moment before she finally nodded through a tight-lipped smile. "Of course! I'll get right on it."

When she entered the room, Henry was already spinning around in the doctor's chair, his eyes on the floor, giggling at the tickle in his stomach. Piper raised an eyebrow. "Having fun?"

He jumped up quickly, waving his arms in front of him with a startled, "Huh? Nothing! I was—" he stumbled, barely catching himself on the bed and crossing his legs, a fist balled up against his hip in an attempt to act casual. "I was just testing it. It works."

Piper's eyebrows hit the roof at his overzealous recovery, her mouth opened in a silent ahh, and sat down. She held Olive up in front of her and smiled. "Uncle Henry is crazy, huh? Yes he is! Can you say dumb-dumb?"

Henry huffed and sat down in the chair next to her, pointing a finger at Olive's face. "No you cannot."

They spent the next ten minutes of wait time brawling for Olive's attention. Piper's cheeks burned with strain as Olive gave them wide-eyed, drooly, round-mouthed chaotic coos in response. They were laughing together when the nurse knocked and let herself in with needles. Piper's face dropped a little too quickly.

"I'll hold her," Henry offered.

"No!" Piper jumped in. "I wanna hold her."

Piper shifted in her seat until she was sitting sideways, her back to Henry, a practiced grip on Olive's leg as the nurse swabbed her thigh with an alcohol wipe. If she wasn't scared of startling the nurse, she'd have yelled at Henry the moment she felt him breathing down her neck. Caught between potentially hurting someone and the knowledge of what she knew he knew, Piper winced as Olive began to cry at the needle, the struggle worse than the last round of vaccines. There was strength behind the puncture that made the nurse suck in through her teeth and mutter hushed apologies, and Henry saw it all.

Three more shots and an oral something later, the doctor came in to ask questions and announce that Olive was meeting her milestones. She not-so-subtly celebrated Piper's break from post partum depression and suggested it might come back and she was just at a high right now. Keep an eye on it and call us if it gets bad again. She repeated it a couple of times, like a mantra she just had to drill in.

Henry didn't speak until they left, a single sentence to tell Piper it would be a long drive home.

"So when were you going to tell me?"