Section 2 from Gdoc while ij was down.
“T-Ten days,” she managed through her tears, and she nodded again to both of his questions.
It was the sobbing that brought Teddy out of his excitement. He couldn’t help it, how tickled he was to be having a child. The little girl he’d only heard stories about from the absent chatter of a five year old boy. Teddy didn’t know what to do at that moment, completely lost in his happiness and chased by a guilt for feeling that way.
“Please Victoire, Don’t cry.” He said softly, reaching out again to take her hand gently. “I know, I know. I’m… I’m a horrible and a weak person, Victoire. I’m a fuck up, and your so much better than I am, you deserve so much better than I can give you, better than I am. There isn’t anything I can do that will make it better, and I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry for putting you through all of this, and I don’t want you to think that for a moment this changes how I feel about you in the real world, because it doesn’t. Things are different here and the circumstances are for more complex than you could even begin to imagine. And I’m sorry for that.”
“I do want you to know one thing.” He started again after a brief silence, “You probably hate me. I would hate me, but… there is nothing that’s going to stop me from being a part of our little girls life, nothing that’s going to keep me from being here for the both of you.”
She didn’t want him to touch her; she couldn’t stand the feel of his skin against hers, a familiar sensation that burned her now. But she didn’t pull away, because while she hated herself for it, she needed that small amount of reassurance that he was still Teddy underneath. That as twisted and unrecognisable as he had become, there was still some small sense of recognition there.
“You’re right,” she said shakily, her voice barely above a whisper. At last she looked at him, her eyes rimmed with red and bloodshot. “I deserve better. I deserve my husband. He would have never done this. I could’ve been gone a century and he wouldn’t have looked at anyone else, because he knows how hard it is to lose the people you love the most, to have that void in your life and never be able to fill it completely. And he would have never done this to me. Ever. Not for some--” She stopped herself before she went there. She had no idea who his girlfriend was and had no desire to know, but Teddy was as much to blame as she was for all of this.
“None of this is an excuse,” she said, her voice breaking once more. “This town, me being gone - none of it. So don’t use it as a crutch. This is your doing, your decision, so be a man and take responsibility. I won’t settle for second, not after - not after everything we’ve been through. If she disappears - if you’re really going to choose some woman you barely know over your wife - then I’m not going to take you back. Because if you do this, you’re not my husband. He would never. And if this place has changed you so completely that not even your family recognises you...” She shook her head and wiped her eyes. She couldn’t. She couldn’t look at him and know he had chosen someone else. “We’ve been together for over a decade, Teddy, at least in my time. But if you really threw that all away just because I wasn’t here for a little while...”
She swallowed tightly and said nothing for a long moment. She was tempted to tell him no; this was her husband’s daughter, and if he wasn’t her husband, then this wasn’t his daughter. But as angry and upset and utterly crushed as she was, she couldn’t do that - she couldn’t deny her baby a version of her father, no matter how unlike her real father he was.