[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]
It was hard to breathe and the tears wouldn’t stop coming. Hecate leaned into Marin, turned her face into her new sister’s shoulder. Marin squeezed her and then gently ran her hand up and down Hecate’s arm.
“We’ll protect you,” Marin whispered. “We’ll protect you as much as we can, Hecate. I promise.”
“I don’t deserve it,” she said in a broken voice, her words barely intelligible through the sobs. “I’ve brought this on myself. Everything is—”
“Don’t say it.”
Hecate squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. She wanted to believe the woman next to her, but it was hard to ignore the cacophony inside of her, the old voices that never really went away, the ones she knew weren’t really telling her anything she should listen to, but it was just so hard. She sucked in a few shaky, hiccuping breaths, trying to master herself again.
You can do this. You can be better. Matt wants to help. She wants to help, too. You can do this.
“Here,” Marin said softly, jarring her. Hecate didn’t know how long she’d been quiet, how long she’d been crying, how long they’d been sitting there. For a second, she wondered if she’d dissociated somehow. If she had, Marin didn’t let on, at least not yet.
Hecate opened her eyes, turning to look at her. They felt swollen and ached from crying.
I must have dissociated. I don’t remember crying for that long.
She realized what Marin was doing a second later. “What? No, I—”
“Shh,” Marin hushed, gently manipulating Hecate’s arms into the correct position. A second later, before Hecate could stop her, she settled her newborn in Hecate’s arms.
For a split second, Hecate stiffened, her throat going tight as panic began to set in. Don’t. Don’t. You can handle this. She stared down at the baby, who stared up at her in silence, as if he was studying her, somehow committing her to memory. Her breath caught in her throat.
Hecate started to relax, slowly lifting one hand to brush it lightly over the infant’s downy hair, dark like his parents’. “I don’t think anyone told me what you named him,” she said, her voice weak.
Marin smiled. “Thomas Merlin Ambrose.”
And… Marin uses mama instincts to help Hecate focus. She also showed Hecate how must she trusts her.