Chương 1157: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Fifty-Five

Dear Diary, There are times when I open up to my family about trauma and it's like popping a zit. All the nasty stuff comes flowing out, and the support and love my family shows me is like the soap and water cleaning the remaining infection out.

Okay, sometimes some of them, especially the Fae ones, can be like alcohol, and I know I read you're not supposed to use alcohol to disinfect stuff any more, but sometimes it's the only thing that makes it feel clean, makes it feel like the whole fuckin' wound isn't gonna fester again. Other times it's like hitting the trauma with lidocaine. I mean, the support and understanding that makes sense on, since they're replacing the pain of trauma with the love and support that families are supposed to offer.

But I'm coming to realize that the sharing itself can be an analgesic as well. Like there's some kind of a knot, and talking it out is like stretching that knot until it lets go. Of course, not unlike with the metaphor about exuding whatever nasty substances have built up, sometimes my family's support is less lidocaine and more tiger balm. Still painkiller, but there's definitely some burn there. Which, honestly, I'm not averse to. Go figure.

There are even some times when whatever trauma I'm dealing with has left me with busted up shit in my psyche that needs to be debrided. Sometimes I need them to keep me company while I do it, but more often I need them to hold my hand and say supportive things while they sort out the functional, living stuff that can be saved from the dead, diseased, or otherwise toxic stuff that's just keeping me from healing. That's where I really do not regret my...

Okay, it wasn't really a decision to live it, but I still don't regret my polyamorous lifestyle in the slightest, because the ones providing the painkiller can do that while the ones more likely to deliver less pleasant healing can do the snipping. Okay, honestly sometimes they take turns, and Tallulah winds up being my supportive woobie while Siobhan carves the unhealthy bits out of my brain meats, but that's fine too.

What I absolutely did not expect was going into a therapy session expecting some of each of the above, and getting blindsided by somebody reminding me that yes, there are folks with more trauma than me here and now, and worse, some of those folks' trauma wasn't incidental or accidental like mine, but was caused by absolutely deliberate decisions and actions on the part of some asshole who definitely deserves an extra large helping of Find Out™. So yesterday I slept most of the day away, only waking up at sunset.

I felt some kinda way about not helping get everyone ready to go, but honestly at least a third of the kids are, at least in terms of size and self-possession, damn near adults at this point. Shit, none of the kits are really super immature. Okay, Anise and Felicia, but I'd put them as at least as mature as I was when I arrived, and I was a whole assed Cadet at that point.

Meanwhile some of the smaller ones are level headed enough that if I found out they'd spent the week alone here at the Homestead, my only real worry would be laundry, since the laundry tub down in the basement was made with Marie in mind, and I don't think any of the smaller kids could really reach properly without a stepstool. Or a ladder. I was right about the baked goods. It's getting close to Autumn, and Murder Mittens is definitely testing out some new recipes for pie.

Some of them inspired by the assorted foodstuffs I've requested she make, like pastelillos and pizza, others by the stuff we make here at the Homestead, like honey and grapes. Apparently that latter got her thinking about foods she remembered from when she was a kid, but we don't have figs or dates here, so she mostly worked with grapes.

I mean, she had enough peaches and berries to make a few pies out of each, especially the latter, but 'enough to make pie' and 'enough to experiment' are two entirely different quantities. It did not escape my notice that the two most common crops at the Homestead are grapes and barley, and if honey was a crop that would be a close third.

It also did not escape my notice that once we got to Mom and Dad's place, Marie parked her cart, scooped up Saffron, dropped her pointedly in my lap, poked her in the forehead, and said, "Behave." before distributing the pie for dinner. Because she'd brought pies for dinner atop her cart, but I definitely knew my Kitten could tell what Marie'd loaded the rest of her cart with. All those experimental pies, which were for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

Saffron folded her arms under her breasts, stuck her lip out, and muttered, "I can self-regulate." I hugged her, then whispered in her ear, "but isn't it so much more fun to have me regulate you?" Her booger look got worse, at which point I asked, "are you really upset about it?" She disappeared the pout, laid her head on my shoulder, and said, "of course not, love." Then she giggled, stuck her lip back out, and said, "now, regulate me." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

So other than a token bite just to taste the flavors, which I hadn't been able to do properly for weeks, I fed all of my pies and pastries to my Kitten one agonizing bite at a time. By the time I finished feeding her what Marie brought for her as well as what she'd brought for me, everybody else was asleep.

"Do I need to stay up all night?" She tilted her head.

"I don't want you doing that. Not when you need to be ready to talk tomorrow. But... Can you sleep in such a way that I won't be able to move without waking you?" Which is how Marie, Tallulah and I wound up using our naughty little Kitten as a pillow. And why we all woke shortly before sunrise to see Marie holding her just outside of arms reach of the cart, one claw wrapped around Kitten's waist.

Honestly, if she'd asked me to steal it all for her, I think we all know that I would, but this game was way more fun for all of us. Of course she stopped messing about once the kids woke up, and even helped make sure everybody got breakfast before she stole an entire... I'm not even sure what to call it. It's not a shoofly pie, because those are made out of molasses. Marie had done basically the same thing, only with honey. Different, and I think stickier, but no less awesome.

Also, 'stole' isn't quite appropriate for something Marie very obviously left atop her cart, then turned her back on when Saffron started subtly moving towards it. So I caught her and held it just beyond her lips.

"What do you say, Kitten?"

"Please?" I laughed, sat her in my lap, and fed it to her, very carefully keeping her from making a mess of herself. Which, since that meant every bit of pie went into her pie hole where it belongs, she didn't fuss too much about. When the Docs arrived, Saffron stopped playing around and turned to me, letting out a sigh.

"Love?" I nodded, then raised my hand. Doc G looked at me.

"You wanted to talk about something?" I nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sorry if it seems like I'm fixating on it, but... It's about my mom. Well, about both of them." I turned to Sigyn with a wry smile.

"Not you, Mom." She just smiled back.

"I didn't think it was." I sighed.

"Yeah. I... I know I told you guys that I killed my mom, but... I didn't really tell you how guilty I felt. Didn't tell you how it opened up old wounds from back in the day. From my birth mother back in Camden..." When he realized I'd trailed off, after waiting a bit, Doc G asked, "how so?" I jerked at his voice as it prodded at me, got my words moving all in a rush.

"I killed her. I killed her too. Not by holding her under the surface of my Maw like I did with Domnu, but by making her work three jobs to pay for my lazy ass. By being the worst kid ever, stressing her out even while she was tryna keep me fed and housed until I grew up." Doc G shook his head and asked, "were you an adult then?" I chewed air for a bit. Eventually I muttered, "no."

"Have any of your children ever 'acted up'?" I thought about Anise and Felicia trying to fly when they didn't know the rules. Thought about Maze tryna drown me. Thought about Menace stabbing me with one of Vulcan's bolts.

"Yeah."

"Were you injured by any of it?" I shrugged.

"Yeah?"

"Do you blame your children?"

"No!" He smiled at me.

"Then what makes you think that your mother blamed you? What makes you think either of your them blamed you?"

"I killed Domnu. Held her under the surface of my Maw until she fell apart." Then the bastard cut my legs out from under me when he asked, "did she lash out at you?" Literally, the next thing I knew I was on my knees, sobbing. My ladies, my kids, Mom and Dad, they all gathered around, holding me, holding each other. Holding Menace, who'd glomped onto my head and wouldn't let go, even as she sobbed as hard as I did.

"It... It hurts." Saffron held me as Siobhan stroked my hair, and Marie nuzzled me.

"Yes."

"Why?" That's when Tallulah, who'd been making sure nobody hurt themselves in the pile of hugging, crying kids, said, "because you did something you did not want to do, gave up something... Someone precious to you, even though you did not want to."

"Precious? She was a pain in my ass." Tallulah just shrugged.

"Haven't we all been at one point or another?" My mouth worked, but nothing would come out. She was right. She was so right. I hadn't liked Domnu, but she was my mother, and some hard wired instinct made me love her. I... I realized right then that described my mom back in the day pretty well as well. So I wept, letting it out, letting my ladies and kids and parents support me while all the old, toxic trauma seeped out of me. Some time... Later.

I'm not sure how long, just that it was well after dawn and well before sunset, and we'd had a weird, sobbing, yet still Marie awesome lunch a while before, Aisling came up and tugged at my pants.

"... Mama?..."

"Yeah, Aisling?"

"... my a pain in the ass?..." I shook my head, hiccupped, and said, "no more than any other kid. And it doesn't matter. I love you." She stiffened when I said that, like I'd slapped her. She muttered something, and when I looked at her, touching my ear, she tried again, "... hurt me?..."

"I'm not gonna. Nobody else is gonna if I can say anything about it. Because that's what it means to be a Mama. To love your kids." Again, when I said the word 'love', she winced. Then, even less firmly than her typical whisper, she breathed out, "... mine did..." Something itched at me when she said that. Something I'd been missing, like the thought that I'd seen a puzzle piece with the other half of the window I was looking at right now.

"May I Assess you?" She shrugged.

"I won't if you don't want to. But I want to make sure you're not hurt. That whoever... However your mother hurt you, I want to make sure it's not still hurting. Not getting worse. May I?" She nodded. I Shaped the Spell. And then stared at the first line. Her name. The nickname, 'Ash', that she reacted so poorly to. And her last name. Leanan.