Clarice Fong + Marceline Proudstar waiting room
E | COMPLETE
Stress eating birthday cake out of its container while sitting outside a delivery room with her future daughter wasn’t exactly how Clarice had thought she’d be spending John’s birthday. Then again, nothing here was surprising anymore so maybe some part of her should have been expecting these circumstances exactly. Dawn being born on the same day as John was kind of perfect, too. She held the box between herself and Marceline, who was in charge of the music because the party hadn’t ended - it had moved. It was still a celebration after all.
So far no one had bothered them even as they devised a plan to have the music play both for them and for Lorna, John and whoever else might be assisting. Thank God for batteries, though, because power was fluctuating something fierce thanks to Lorna’s considerable powers. Clarice tapped her foot to the beat as she chewed, looking over to Marceline once she was done. “You know, these things sometimes take hours. More cake?”
"It won't take four hours," answered Marceline, giving her mom a wink. She remembered the stories of Dawn's birth, that power was shorting out all over and people were having to be moved further away if they had life-saving machines. She was pretty sure she got the soft version of the story, too, because she'd seen what Aunt Lorna could do when she was upset. Still, it hadn't been an extremely long delivery. It was as if Dawny wanted out as much as her mother wanted her out.
She drove her own fork into the cake and shoveled a bit into her mouth while adding a few more songs to her playlist with her other hand. Granted, those stories hadn't involved her being there, so who knows if that changed things at all. Still, if worse came to worst, she knew that she and her mom could get people to safety pretty easily. She tried not to think about how weird it felt to be at Dawn's birth, though. This was the older sister (sort of) that she'd grown up around. The first girl she tried to kiss (she was confused). What made it easier, though, was knowing that she'd be joining a bad ass family and would have great people around her for her entire life.
"Sorry I didn't tell you that Dawny and Dad shared a birthday," she offered, as an aside.
Clarice smiled immediately as Marce winked, and narrowed her eyes. Little know-it-all, courtesy of the future. A future which seemed to be on track, judging by the few lights that remained plugged in and struggling to stay on. She had shot a few texts to John, but doubted he was looking. Still, they’d probably have a chuckle at the silly supportive messages she sent both for him and Lorna.
There was no way of knowing how Lorna must be feeling, so Clarice wasn’t trying, but she wondered. Especially with Marceline right there beside her, a weird little time hiccup that shifted everything from the ‘what if’ column firmly onto the ‘eventually’ one. Clarice grimaced at the idea and inhaled sharply. Meanwhile, Marceline apologized for having kept the good news from them. “Are you kidding? Thanks for not ruining the surprise! Your dad’s face, oh man. I hope he looks at least as excited when it’s our turn. Maybe less baffled.”
Thinking for a second, Marceline had a brief moment of curiosity as to why she knew more about Dawn's birth years before her own than she did about her own birth. Most of the stories that were passed around during family discussions revolved more around the shock of pink hair and that she never really cried as a baby (that came later when she learned it got her attention, less so from actually being upset). There were pictures of her dad holding her as a baby and he looked excited and very, very pleased, so she knew that much at least. "Well, I don't want to ruin the surprise there, either, but I think everything'll be great," she responded, looking over at her mom with a smile that said 'because it's me.'
The smile was interrupted when the lights dimmed again and you could hear the groaning of metal from somewhere, and whatever it was that was bending wasn't intended to be bent. It was kind of a horrible sound. Marceline winced and tried to focus on her music. "Do you think Aunt Lorna's okay? I mean, I know it all ends well, but no one really talked about the during."
Clarice, for her part, had found herself wanting to know more and more about Marceline. It was a constant balancing act between hardly being able to wait to meet her in her proper place in the timeline and wanting to take it slow and enjoy everything without being hung up on one specific moment to come. She and John had a lot of checkpoints to hit, for example, and so did she on her own. Marceline’s response earned her a bright smile, and Clarice bumped her shoulder against Marce’s. “It’s funny, I started thinking about what it would be like when Lorna showed up here with not long to go. Sometimes I’d just lay in bed wondering. And then you showed up.”
Her bright green eyes widened at the sounds around them, the metal bending was especially worrying. Clarice looked around but didn’t see much, although she grimaced anyway. “Um... No one ever says much about how crappy it was, only that the result was worth everything. I think your brain makes it so you can’t really remember a lot of it.“ She shrugged and took some more cake onto her fork. “And Marcos isn’t here, that’s hard on her. And scary. She’s been through a lot but anything this big and this new does a number on your head. Even with your dad in there, which is for sure doing her a world of good.”
"Yeah," answered Marceline. Sometimes it was really hard to remember that you had a ton of memories that your family didn't have. Which made her question nearly everything she was about to say before she said it - quite the feat for Marceline Proudstar. She'd slipped up nearly a dozen times, but it was getting easier. "Dad's got this," she noted. Her mom's shoulder bump was pretty much one of her favorite things to grow up with and it really felt good that it was so natural for them to fall into their patterns almost subconsciously.
Marceline put her fork back in her mouth to try and get some of the icing out from between the prongs and looked over at her mom for a moment. When she was satisfied that she'd gotten as much she could (or it'd be there forever), she scooted closer to Clarice and leaned against her. "I don't think you ever regretted me, so the result is definitely worth everything. Though I know there were a few times I maybe pushed the wrong buttons. But that's normal for kids. I hope."
Clarice nodded. Of course John had this, there was a reason why she had once told him taking care of people was his other superpower. But all the same, she wished Marcos was the one in there with Lorna, for both their sakes. Luckily, she had Marceline there to cheer her up. This was all extremely weird, and it once again felt like they had jumped a bunch of steps in a path, but it still felt like she knew and loved this kid. Their physical language was familiar and affectionate, and it didn’t weird her out as much as it probably should have. Clarice leaned her head over Marce’s own for a little while.
“Yeah, people aren’t perfect whatever age they are. You occasionally being a little shit is no reason to regret you.” She smiled. “And I’ve got the advantage of going in with a perfect image of what the result is going to be. So, worth it.”
Maybe it was the stress over worrying about Aunt Lorna, but Marceline just started laughing until she hiccuped. "Geez, mom, that's sweeter than this cake." She kept laughing and smiling until she had to stop to breathe and get the hiccups under control. "I love you, too."
All the laughing startled Clarice and she stared at Marceline with her fork hovering in the air, then rolled her eyes. “I have my moments, okay? God.” Eventually it all made her laugh too, and then the verbal show of affection really drove it all home. “Awww. I’m gonna use that every time you’re annoyed by me. Future you says she loves me, so...”
She took another forkful of cake, and bumped her shoulder against Marceline’s once again.