Daria Waterhouse (ourwaterways) wrote in darker_london, @ 2018-12-17 16:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | daria waterhouse, yolande waterhouse |
Almost time, almost time to go (Daria, Yolande, open to Noah if you like)
The first time Yolande died, Daria had been seventeen. She’d dealt with her grief by not dealing with it, spending all night out of the house without a word to Neil where she was, getting so, so high with Adam, disappearing from school with Art. She spent as little time around her dying mother as she possibly could, and as little time around her family. It had been terrible, and damaging, and as a result Daria had always tried to confront her feelings head on. Shine a fucking maglight onto them and just – cope. Link arm and arm with the rest of her family, with her friends, and don’t hide. Never hide.
Now, Yolande was curled up on the couch in Daria’s living room, shaking and sweating and pale as a ghost, and all Daria wanted to do was lock herself in her closet and press her hands over her ears till it was over.
“Mum?” she asked, in the tiniest voice, creeping closer. Daria had woken up foggy-headed from a nap, and a large part of her mind was still very much asleep. The new medication she was trying for her post-natal depression made her extra drowsy, although so had the depression, although so had the kids.
Yolande’s eyes flow open and she pushed herself up, smiling, though the strain showed on her face. “I’m okay, sweetheart.”
“Bull,” Daria said, taking a careful seat beside her. She was taller than her mother, bigger in general as she still carried round a lot of Alastair-and-Agatha weight, and Yolande looked so fragile Daria was afraid of breaking her. “Mum, you look like shit.”
She hadn’t looked this bad before Daria went down for her nap. She’d come over to watch over Daria while Noah dropped the older twins off at school and went on a grocery mission on his way home, and she’d seemed okay, then. Tired maybe. A little pale. Fainter than usual.
But Daria was all those things, too. Maybe it wasn’t such a surprise that she hadn’t noticed. She was sure Yolande hadn’t been sweating then, though. The heating wasn't up that high.
“Well, love, I’m not feeling so great,” Yolande said, with a bit of a smile, as she straightened herself up.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” Daria hauled herself up and made a beeline for the kitchen. Guilt tunnelled her vision, and all she could think about was getting some apple juice out of the fridge. When she turned around to find a cup, she was shocked to find that Yolande had followed her, and yelped in surprise. Yolande reached out and steadied the bottle of apple juice, and Daria’s hands.
The bottle was cold, under Daria’s palms. Yolande’s hands, placed over top of them, were only a little warmer. “I can pour us some juice, darling,” Yolande said softly. “And you need to eat, too. Did you have breakfast, before I got here?”
Daria nodded, though her stressed out eyes never left Yolande’s face. “Noah made us all breakfast,” she said. “He’ll bring home something from the bakery for lunch, probably.”
Yolande glanced at the clock, it was almost eleven. “I’ll make us both bananas on toast,” she said. Her body did not feel like it could keep food down, but she was determined to try. Maybe more fuel would hold back the feeling that she was slowly rotting from the inside. “And some coffee.”
“I can do it,” Daria insisted, refusing to let go of the apple juice.
“And we could both wear ourselves out fighting over who gets to feed who,” Yolande said, trying to sound firm. “So why don’t you pour the juice and I’ll do the toast?”
“This is my fault,” said Daria, suddenly, sadly. She released her hold on the apple juice, and for a moment, Yolande wasn’t sure what to do with it. Pour a couple of glasses anyway to keep them hydrated? Put it down on the bench and take Daria’s hands? “I bought you back and now I’m making you so sick! And what if these meds take weeks to kick in – you can’t last weeks, look at you! What if staying damages you and hurts you so much you can’t come back at all? I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry you have to go through this again I’m-”
She was only cut off because Yolande had stepped forward and placed her fingers over Daria’s mouth. “Darling,” she said gently. “Take a breath.”
Daria did, and then burst into tears. Yolande looped an arm around her waist and marched them both back toward the couch, Daria struggling to regain herself. Take another breath, she told herself, but she felt too terrible.
It had only been a month since Agatha and Alastair were born. It felt like longer, the days broken up into two-or-three hour chunks. And it had only been a month since Yolande came back, but it felt sometimes like she’d never died.
She had died, though. Nine long years she’d been dead. Nine long years they had all learned to live in the world without her. “I can’t remember how to be without you,” Daria collapsed her head onto her mother, face first onto her collarbone, and Yolande put her arms around her.
“Of course you can,” Yolande said, stroking a slow circle on Daria’s back. “Daria I’ve seen the things you’ve done. I’ve seen the wonder you are.”
“No,” said Daria, shaking her head, though her hands were gripping onto Yolande’s sweater. “No no.”
Yolande drew them both down so they could sit, and tried not to groan, out loud, as the couch took her weight. Her body ached, but so did her heart.
“Shhh,” she cupped her hands around Daria’s face, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “I had a talk with Merry, a couple of days ago,” Yolande said, sitting back. Daria brushed the tears from her cheeks, scrubbing at them with the end of her sleeve. “She said something to me. That she hasn’t needed me in nine years, why would she start now.”
“The fuck?” Daria’s voice squeaked, and she stared at her mother, horrified, and powerfully annoyed. It was, at least, a change from the guilt. “Merry!”
“She isn’t wrong,” Yolande said, her eyebrows up. Very much in the way that she used to warn the girls off each other. Very much. Daria felt justly warned, but still annoyed. How dare Merry? “She doesn’t need me to fix her,” Yolande said. “I’m her mother, not some kind of goddess. If there’s something missing inside her she’ll find it herself. And so will you, Daria.”
Daria looked at her miserably through her tangle of hair and the annoyance drained out of her. It was much, much easier to be pissed off at a sibling than figure out how to get un-depressed, and raise four kids, without her mother. After a hopeless pause she shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, with barely the breath to form the words. “I need you.”
“Bullshit,” said Yolande, fondly, and took Daria’s chin in her hand. “Look at all the beautiful, powerful things you have done to the world without me. Look at the children, look at the love you’ve built, look at the friends you’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with against the darkest of evils. You didn’t need me for any of that, it’s all in you.”
Daria closed her eyes. “Not anymore,” she whispered. The fight, whatever part of her had been that person had vanished. She was standing in a room with a power cord in her hand but the socket in the wall was gone. Not just plastered over. Gone. It terrified her.
“Bullshit,” Yolande said again. “I will keep saying it till I’m blue in the face. Bullshit bullshit bullshit.”
“Stop it – I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
“You can, you can, you will,” Yolande said firmly. “You have your family. You have Noah. And if your heart is struggling then, well, didn’t you tell me that he is a part of your heart? And he’s okay, isn’t he?” Daria sniffled, trying not to descend too far into sobs. Noah was okay. It calmed her breathing, a little. Noah was okay. “See then,” Yolande continued. “Lean on him, for a while. Lean on your father. Keep talking to your lady at the hospital. Share the load around a little, darling, that’s all you need to do for a while. And you’ll be okay,” she gave Daria’s arms a firm rub. “You’ll find your way back to yourself. It might take a little while, but that’s okay. You’ll find your way back.”
Daria gave the longest, shakiest sign, and curled up on the couch, her head in her mother’s lap. She wanted to find her way back – no, what she wanted was to have never been lost in the first place. To be strong, and capable, without fail. If only...
She’d been okay without her mother, before. She’d thrown a book at the head of a Templar when he broke into her bedroom in McKinley Hall. She’d rallied hundreds of people into hope, when it had felt like the goddamn end times in London. She’d saved Diana and her baby from a psycho incubus. The list went on.
Maybe she couldn’t find the person she used to be in the mess inside her head right now, but maybe also her mother was right. That’s what her doctor had said as well; there wasn’t an instant fix, you couldn’t just decide to be better and then you were. You had to decide, and keep deciding, every day, and one day deciding would feel less like a battle where you were outnumbered a dozen to one. One day deciding would be second nature.
Besides, she wasn’t outnumbered. She had Noah, and Neil. Her sisters, her friends.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be using your lap as a pillow,” Daria managed to say, after a long, long time. She didn't know how else to tell her mother that maybe she was ready to let go. To survive after letting go. “If you disappear right now, my neck’s going to suffer.”
“Do you want to move?” Yolande asked, lightly. She was stroking Daria’s hair away from her temple, very gently, watching her think.
“No,” Daria whispered, nuzzling the wet patch her tears had made on Yolande’s skirt. “No I just wanna stay here, till you go.”
“Okay, my darling,” Yolande kissed her fingers, and pressed them again Daria’s face. “I’m always with you, wherever I am, I’m always with you.”
Yolande found herself suddenly anxious, not ready to go back, despite the ache in her body. It was like pausing at the top of a rollercoaster, knowing the whole world was about to drop out from under her and change. She wasn’t afraid of going back to the Beyond, but she didn’t know how to be ready.
If Daria can manage it, she told herself, very strongly, then so can I. Everything will be alright. Everything will be alright.
She closed her eyes, and tried to feel her body slipping away. She didn’t want to go, but it was time. Everything would be alright. It was time to be released from this ache in her body. Surely it was time.
But the fear was misplaced – her body felt as solid and as present as it ever had. By the time Noah arrived home with groceries and lunch from the bakery, Yolande was still on the couch.
Daria heard the car door announce Noah’s arrival, and sat up, watching her mother in alarmed confusion. Yolande forced a smile, a bright one. “It’s alright,” she told Daria. “Maybe I just need to say one more goodbye to your father.”
Daria smiled back, uncertainly. Yolande shook her head and shook it off. “Come on then,” she said, in the same bright, forced tone. “Let’s help Noah bring in those groceries.”