(2022-10-06) Borrowed Babies

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Ben returns home from last week's Bruuk's get-together to tell Ismene of Alynnra's reappearance, and to discuss their (borrowed) babies.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

Arc: Rae and the Mysterious Mondragons

Chain: Bizzy

The Callis Orchards estate is sunk peacefully in slumber in the deep blue hour after midnight. Well, usually it is: tonight the stillness is rippled, first by the muffled sounds of horse and harness and low male voices outside, and then by the opening and closing of the front door. A sleepy Barnsby makes inquiry, and is reassured by a low, familiar male voice, and then someone takes the elegant stairs two at a time. (The stairs have probably been taken two at a time more in the last three months than in their entire past existence.)

The door to Mizzy’s room — to Lord and Lady Hazan’s room — eases open.

This late, Ismene Hazan is sound asleep. Lacking a giant furnace in her bed, she is sprawled out but layered in blankets and down comforters until just her hair peeks out. Maybe it’s because she’s face down that a thin little snore can be heard.

Ben hesitates in the doorway, studying the blanket-buried figure with a soft gaze. At the tiny snore, the corner of his mouth twitches upward in a smile, and he slips all the way into the room and shuts the door.

He’s dressed in the casual dark clothes he wore out to Bruuk’s, and has his saddlebags slung over his shoulder from travel and his boots in one hand from consideration at his late-night arrival. He stoops to set these items quietly by the door and then, rather than crossing at once to the bed, goes instead to the opposite corner of the room where two veiled bassinets stand side-by-side.

The bassinets are mismatched (perhaps borrowed, or acquired secondhand?), one painted white and one of polished cherry wood, uneven in height, both draped in muslin, both presently silent. Ben stops at the nearer of the two and bends to fold back the veil and peer inside. He watches, waiting; after a moment, his eyes widen and he bends closer and turns his head, angling his ear toward the bassinet’s occupant. A moment later, relief floods his expression and he straightens again, nods approval at the tiny sleeper, and shrouds them in privacy again. He shifts to the other bassinet.

This time, though, when he lifts back the drapery, the second bassinet’s occupant gives a tiny, hoarse cry. Ben casts a wide-eyed look at the sleeping Mizzy and bends to lift the baby from the bassinet. “Shhhhhh, shhh-shhh,” he says, and props the tiny person against his shoulder. He begins walking a slow back-and-forth circuit, patting the baby’s back and making low shushy noises.

Too late. The blankets rise near the pillows. “Wazzat?” Mizzy asks the headboard. It has no reply, being only a headboard, so she looks over at the babies as the next likely culprit.

For one horrible moment, she sees only Giant Shadow and she scrambles upright, golden light illuminating her upheld hand. Maybe a giant column of holy light isn’t safe around the babies, but that’s a secondary concern when there is a Giant Shadow in the room. Fortunately, it provides enough light for ready identification, and she snuffs the spell half-cast.

“Ben. Sorry. I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I was sound asleep.” She turns, blankets and sheets rustling around her, and sits up properly. “What time is it?” she asks, rubbing her eyes.

“Dunno,” says Ben, low and apologetic, and casts a glance at the window. “Late. Early. Around midnight when I got in at Southshore.” He continues to walk and pat, as the baby makes fitful whimpering noises against his shoulder. “Ain’t mean to wake you. Wanted to check on, uh. These little fellows.”

Ismene slides out of bed and pads quietly to him, smiling at the baby. “They’re good babies,” she whispers. “I suppose they’re too young to get into trouble, but they don’t make trouble either. They like the orchards, and the falling leaves.” She lifts a hand to rub the baby’s back.

“Did you think something would be wrong?” she asks, looking up at Ben.

“Naw, no,” says Ben, too smoothly and too fast. There’s a twitch of guilt in his expression. “Well. Had a weird thing happen at Bruuk’s,” he confesses.

He crosses to the bed and settles onto its edge, still holding the baby at his shoulder. “Alynnra Mondragon come by. The mama, yeah? Or — well, one of the mamas, I guess?”

She peeks in at the other baby and smiles down at him before walking back to the bed. She curls up closer to the headboard so she can pull blankets over her lap. “I never did really understand all that. Someday you’ll have to explain it with charts or something. She came by and…?”

Ben considers this, his brows knit. He has stopped patting the baby’s back but shifts his weight a little on the mattress, rocking ever-so-slightly. The baby is fast asleep and drooling on him. “She was… I mean. She has never been right in the head from the first time I met her. I reckoned back then it was Miz Fey doin’ somethin’ to her, but Miz Fey said she was keepin’ her clouded because there was somethin’ wrong with her.” He glances over at Mizzy. “You told me that when she come in the clinic, she was lookin’ to take Alynnra away someplace drugged and stash her so she wouldn’t get wind of the plague an’ all.”

“And Estel suggested someone take care of the babies, which she said would be a help,” Mizzy says, nodding. “I offered immediately, of course, though I have been somewhat dreading when she comes to take them back. I expected her to show up when the cure was well-distributed and it proved so efficacious.”

Ismene wriggles her feet until her cold toes are under Ben’s thigh. “Did she seem especially wrong, then?”

“She seemed like — I mean. I did not expect her to be out an’ about on her own, since what y’all said about Miz Fey, an’ I do know Miz Fey liked to keep apron strings on her. So… although I dunno if Miz Fey still got apron strings on her in a secret way. She spied on us a while by puttin’ a spell on Rae, you know?” He shifts to accommodate the chilly foot beneath him, and drops his now-free hand absently to clasp her ankle. “She did not seem to have a real clear idea about what all might’ve gone on recent, still was talkin’ about gettin’ back home to Brill to visit. Had no idea at all about the babies. I mentioned Baby Dane an’ she said, like, ‘Oh, I dunno the first thing about babies!’”

He hesitates again. “But then again, as sweet an’ cloudy as she seems, she is the one who attacked Rae. With the– y’know.” He nods down at his own arm. “Fucken curse thing. Which is how come we went lookin’ for her in the first place, and run afoul of Miz Fey.”

Ben checks the baby tucked against his shoulder with a glance and sees that she’s asleep, but makes no move to rise and put her back in the bassinet. No doubt this is just because he is warming Mizzy’s foot at present. No doubt.

“You reckon we should name ‘em?” he asks after a moment. “I mean… just to call ‘em somethin’ apart from ‘the babies’?”

“They already have names, though, don’t they? Do you think it would confuse things, somehow, if we used their names?” Ismene leans forward to see the baby better. “I think it’s going to be hard enough to let them go,” she admits, “without giving them our own names. But of course we will!” Of course. Right? She looks at Ben. Because maybe not?

Ben does not answer this last not-quite-question. (If it’s not a question, he doesn’t have to answer it.) “Well,” he says, “their names are Miranda an’ Alysson. But that’s… y’know. Kind of different thems? From the future. Different future. An’ Alysson told us — me an’ Sil, I mean — that he took the name himself. ‘Aly’s son.’ I dunno if he had one different before that.” He rocks slightly, contemplatively, still with one hand around Mizzy’s ankle and the baby in the crook of his other arm. “I mean, we wouldn’t have to give ‘em names for keeps. Just somethin’ we could call ‘em that isn’t ‘babies’ or, y’know. ‘Alysson,’ which feels fucken weird when Alysson is already a fellow out there. Hell, we could call ‘em Fred an’ Frieda for all we want, so long as it ain’t ‘babies.’”

Dragging a blanket with her (as much as possible since some of it is under Ben), Ismene snuggles close to Ben, taking his hand off her ankle and draping it around her shoulders. “I mean, we don’t want to use up any names we want for our own children. And I like Miranda! But yes, he needs a different name.” She thinks about it. “Do you have any names in mind? Something you like but wouldn’t necessarily name your son?”

Ben tucks her closer against his side. “Leo,” he suggests at last. “Liam? I dunno.” He considers. “Or somethin’ that goes with Miranda. What goes with Miranda?”

“Mmmmmalcolm. No. Marcus. Malachi?” She thinks about it. “Or we could ask Almeiria. At one time, you didn’t care for her much. Has your opinion changed?” Not for any reason. Just looking at Miranda.

“No,” he says immediately, reflexively. The baby makes a tiny, sleepy noise against his shoulder: o rly? “I mean,” he amends, “no, yeah, I still do not like her. She ain’t right. But Estel likes her, and Estel — I mean. She is sensible as hell, you know? Reckon she feels sorry for Miz Fey, too, for some reason I ain’t figure out just yet, but. So… I do not like her, but I reckon I might… trust her a little more? Trust her like I trust a snake can bite. Trust her as far as I can throw Estel.” He smiles wryly.

“Micah,” she says. “Miranda and Micah? Miranda and Mmmirando?” She’s probably kidding about that last one. She rests a slender hand on Ben’s chest. Cold fingers. “When she came to the clinic, when I told her we could take care of the babies, Estel was friendly with her. I don’t know that she likes her as much as…” She thinks. “…agrees with her aims, maybe? Wants to help, anyway. There’s something in the way she smiles that makes me want to ward against her. Or as if holy damage would hurt her more, somehow.”

Ben nods vigorously enough to trouble the tiny sleeper on his shoulder again. He stills. “Yeah. Right? Yeah. When she come into Scholomance with us, she was healin’ us with Light all right, but it felt like… she shouldn’t be able to. There is somethin’ greasy on her soul.”

“It seems to me she’s most likely the one who cursed poor Raelea. I’ll bet she’s even the one who told you it was Alynnra.” Since the baby’s disturbed, Mizzy reaches over and strokes her cheek. She smiles. “So soft,” she says. “We do have to give them back, don’t we? Even if neither of us trusts Almeiria. They’re not from here. Don’t they have to go back? Is it better where — when? — they’re from?”

“They are from here,” Ben says, almost sharply. As sharply as he can without troubling the baby further. He softens his tone at once. “These two, they belong to here an’ now. The other two, grown Alysson an’ that Miranda… they come from someplace else. Ahead of now, a different now.” He is silent for a moment, his brow knitting, and then he says slowly, as though working through a particularly knotty equation aloud: “If everything for these two goes on how it did the first time around, then in about twenty years from now they will be messin’ with bronze dragons some way and fallin’ back through time to… a different now. One with maybe different baby-thems in it? I dunno.

“But these two, right now, they ain’t the other two, they belong to this now. And already shit has gone different for them, yeah? Alysson said his ma died in childbed. This Alynnra, our one, clearly ain’t done that. So that’s one thing changed.”

He glances ruefully at Mizzy. “That is assumin’ I have got any of this shit straight at all. But it is the best I reckon.” He pauses and his gaze sobers. “An’ no. It wasn’t Miz Fey who told me Alynnra done it. It was Rae herself. When she went to give Alynnra the news her sister was dead, Alynnra attacked her. That’s– the sister was Kaela Mondragon, her commander. The one who is a death knight now, an’ killed Harvey Morningstar.”

He checks the baby, who has subsided dreamily. “It is hard to believe, if you meet her now. Alynnra, I mean. But there is no doubtin’ Rae about it.”

“And Almeiria keeps her from realizing she has children?” Mizzy shakes her head. “I told you this whole story was still confusing to me. I’m sure I never heard the whole thing in one go, and I’m afraid that if someone tried to explain it, we’d need chalkboards and diagrams.”

She bites her lips, then peeks up at Ben. “So… maybe we can keep them? Until Alynnra wants them back?”

“I mean,” says Ben, trying for Stern again. “Mizmainy. We got a lot of responsibilities here already. You got this whole place to manage, I am goin’ back to Outlands — I dunno when, but soon. An’ the Hand — the Crusade — is gonna need me for this northern shit some too.” He looks at the baby on his shoulder and then back at Mizzy and softens a little. “And I do not want you tirin’ yourself out on two ready-made babies when we ain’t even got a start on our own ones yet.”

As an afterthought, he adds, “… an’ of course we will give them back when their mama wants ‘em.”

Ismene smiles. “Yes. When their mama wants them.” She leans against Ben again, then wrinkles her nose. “Miranda has left you a present, I smell. So what are we calling the boy?”

“Shit,” says Ben astutely, and lifts the baby away from his shoulder where, deprived of warmth, she begins to fuss anew. “I mean — that ain’t what we’re callin’ the boy. We can call him… whatever. Micah’s fine.” Mizzy is deprived of warmth too as he shifts and rises to his feet, holding the kicking, protesting infant at arm’s length. He bears her over to the bureau along one wall whose top has been rearranged to accommodate a changing station.

Ismene rises to fetch the newly named Micah, since he starts fussing when Miranda does. “Micah,” she croons to him. “Shhh now,” she says, cradling him close and kissing the wispy hairs on his head. “It’s good practice, though,” she says, presumably to Ben. “For later. Did Captain Jocoza say anything about going North?”

“No,” says Ben, focused on his chore. “I mean, she done her best to muster us that way at the worst of it, an’ I know the Crusade still needs all the hands it can get, but we are still contracted for Outland, and I do not reckon they can do without just yet. There is… too much unfinished there, an’ if we don’t put the Legion back in its tracks out there, we are gonna be well an’ truly fucked back here.” He bends to wrinkle his nose at baby Miranda as he finishes pinning her fresh diaper. “Pardon my language, miss.”

Ismene sways gently, one hand cupped around Micah’s head, holding him carefully and close. “You should pre-apologize to her so you won’t have to keep doing it,” she suggests. “It’s hard to remember that there’s so much left to do in Outland, when everyone here is looking North now. Since the plague.”

There’s something in her tone, a false easiness, perhaps. Something in the way she doesn’t quite look at him could only heighten the impression.

Ben hears it, even without looking at her. He is quiet for a moment, lifts baby Miranda back to his shoulder and turns to face Mizzy and the bassinets behind her. “Miss Kitten,” he says gently. “What is it? Go on and say.”

“Just… There’s not really a threat anymore to the farms,” she says returning to the bassinet to return Micah to his bed. “And there might be a need for healers in the north.”

Ben studies her uncertainly. “An’ you are gonna go? You want to go? Up to Plaguelands? The Crusade?”

“Maybe,” she says. “For the mornings. It’s not far, really.” She sighs. “After cider season, perhaps. I blame you, of course, for my sudden wanderlust. I should be quite content to stay home, run the farms, the business, take care of babies, but I find I miss being of use.”

Ben steps around her quietly to lay baby Miranda back in the other bassinet. He straightens and gazes down at the baby a moment, then draws the muslin drapes back across to veil her sleep. He looks over at Mizzy. “I known a girl last year who would get real cross if someone told her runnin’ a business an’ takin’ care of babies was not bein’ of use,” he says, drily and plainly teasing, trying not to smile.

He turns to take her gently by the elbows and shift her around, looking down at her seriously. “D’you want me to go with you? Step out of squad an’ go to the Crusade full-time?”

She faces him, brown eyes big and shocked. “No, no never. They need you on the squads, you’re a leader.” Then she wrinkles her nose. “Besides, I believe was upset that you seemed to consider it a fallback position instead of a proper use of a lifetime and besides that it’d be different if we were running things together.

“Not that I want you to stop and run things here,” she adds quickly. “Bother…”

She bends away to arrange Micah in his bassinet, drawing the gauze around him as well, then takes Ben’s hand and draws him back to the bed where she sits. “Anyway, I did say I blamed you,” she says, smiling up at him. “I didn’t know how you’d feel if I went to spend some days at the tents by the Chapel. They still need healers there, and it’s not far. Just when I have time.”

Ben settles beside her on the edge of the bed again, and then wraps an arm around her and pulls her close. “Why would I feel any way about it but proud as hell? You are a damn good woman, Mizmainy Hazan, and you’re right they need healers up there, an’ they will be lucky as hell to have you for any time you got.”

The blankets are needful again, and Mizzy wriggles and tugs and squirms until she has both Snuggle-Ben and blankets around her. “Then there are two other things we should discuss,” she says, quite happily. “The full harvest is almost in. Do you think you can make time to spend two days here? They want to have a feast, of course, and music and dancing. I have some ideas for turning it into a real celebration.”

“I think I can manage that,” Ben says, smiling crookedly. “What’s the other thing?”

She almost laughs, but catches it before it can wake the babies again. “No, not yet, you have to help me come up with celebration ideas!” she chastises. “Obviously bobbing for apples, but I thought it would be fun to have other games and booths, like they did at Brewfest. And we need prizes.”

Ben raises his eyebrows and looks around the darkened bedroom. “An’ we got to do that right now?” he asks dubiously. “Because, I will admit, I was hopin’ I could get in bed an’ get some prizes myself in a few minutes here.” He skims her with a significant up and down look, in case she didn’t catch his drift. Your drift is not subtle, Ben, don’t sweat it. “Whyn’t you tell me the other thing, an’ then you can celebrate that I am home, an’ then I will sleep on the other celebration ideas?”

“You’d have been home sooner if you weren’t out drinking all night,” she scolds. “You smell like you had two whole mugs of beer!” Two mugs. My goodness. “And without me there, who knows what you lot got up to until the wee hour of 9 o’clock at night. Positively scandalous behavior, I’m sure.

“But very well.” She rearranges herself and looks at him, most solemn in the faint light coming from the banked fire and the moonlight through the windows. “Bennarin, I want to give you advanced warning, since I understand most married men are forgetful about such things, that our anniversary is next month.”

Nope, she can’t stay solemn. She smiles, bright and happy.

Ben gives her a look of shocked affront. “Missus. I would never.” Sheepishly, he adds, “… after this one time. But only on account it is the first one, so I ain’t in practice at rememberin’ it yet.”

Smug and prim, Ismene tries to shift Ben around so she can get under the blankets because she is smol and cold. “That’s why I’m reminding you now. So you have time to make me something nice. Or get it, I suppose. Now, since your late-night arrival has turned the bedsheets as cold as the rest of the room, I request your presence under the blankets.”

Ben shifts to pull his sweater off over his head, and begins unbuttoning his shirt. “Well, I am always happy to oblige a lady her request. But since you did not say ‘please,’ I hope you are goin’ to make up your manners to me when I get under there.”

“It’s late,” she says, pulling the covers up to her eyes. “I’m going to sleep.” Can you hear a blush? If anyone could hear hers, it’s Ben.

“It is early,” counters Ben; he is correct in only the most technical sense. Having shed his shirt, he stands to deal with trouser-buttons. “And we are practically one year married, Miss Kitten. How many more years, you reckon, before you stop blushin’ at me?” There’s no scold in his tone: quite to the contrary, he sounds pretty pleased with her or himself or both.

“Never!” she says. “Get prizes for yourself… Honestly, Bennarin.” She squirms lower in the covers and rolls over. Look. She’s going to sleep now, all curled into a little ball.

He laughs, low in the darkness, and then the blankets draw back and he slides in alongside her, his body a warm bracket around hers. He kisses her shoulder and then asks quietly in her ear, “D’you remember how, before we was married, you told me that one time about how you liked to picture us on our farm at the end of a day, you in bed waitin’ for me to come join you, an’ a baby in a cradle nearby?”

The warmth of his body, the warmth of the memory, who knows what makes her uncurl? Maybe it’s just to fit the little spoon better against the big spoon. Maybe it’s all three. She smiles and turns her head slightly toward him. Slightly, so as not to bonk heads or make him move away even a fraction. “Well, I did think it’d be our baby,” she whispers.

“There’s that,” he agrees, a smile in his voice. “But it’s a pretty good start.”