August 29, 1892 - Darrow Home, Swallowbury District, Irvingly

With the precious bundle swaddled in her arms it was hard to remember the weeks of fear that had led up to this moment. In fact it was hard to recall much of the past twelve hours either now that her little girl was in her arms. Caroline leaned her head toward the small pink child and gave her a tired smile.

Nothing could have prepared her for labor, or even the fear and anticipation waiting for the event. Caroline rather felt as if she had run from the house in Boston down to the docks and only just caught her breathe (something she had actually done as a child). Her muscles ached. All of her ached, actually. But it was numbed by her love for this small being held close to her chest.

The healer and midwife had cleaned her up and settled her into bed with new sheets before they allowed Evander in. In fact, Caroline was so consumed in her attention for the baby she didn't even hear the door creak open as she ran her finger along the cheek of her child - her child. Was there anything that had ever sounded so precious in the world?

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   Elsie Kirke, Louisa Clearwater

He was fairly convinced either Caroline or the baby would die. Both, if his luck was anything to go by – Caroline particularly had escaped mortal harm by narrow measures at so many previous junctures that Evander suspected now would be the day fate would bite.

So, trying to mentally prepare for all that, Evander had not moved from his desk in his study in hours. (There was little reason that he ought to be rereading his own will tonight, since he was the only one in the house not in danger of expiring – between her sorting and the baby’s birth both looming, Charity might well find a way to spontaneously combust, just to ensure there was some tragedy here – but at least if he suffered an ill-timed fit of apoplexy, he could be comforted by the neatly articled provisions he would have left for them.)

And still, the very stress of this endeavour (although speaking of stress, his wife was presently in the other end of the house behind a very solid door, in the throes of who-knew-what) had made Evander sorely tempted to send for a solicitor to make some very minor but absolutely vital amendments to the document, but, valiantly, he had refrained. At some stage the words had begun to swim before his eyes from the repeated sight of them, his breathing gone a little shallow and his head a little heavy, when –

Oh, the midwife had sent for him. On edge at once, he had sprung from his chair in haste – but he slowed down on the stairs, somehow unable to digest any of the midwife’s placating statements about mother and baby being well. Indeed, Evander ended up letting himself into the room in such utter trepidation that, white-faced, he had to exhale in confusion at the strange sight he saw, of Caroline with something tiny and pink swaddled in her arms. “You’re not dead,” he exhaled from the doorway, the words issuing all a-jumble (and not intentionally aloud). But the sentiment remained. He took another step or two into the room, gingerly; but was almost too afraid to approach the bed and interrupt her, lest the image of them vanished into thin air before his eyes.

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   Caroline Darrow, Louisa Clearwater

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At the sound of Evander's voice Caroline's gaze rose from the baby in her arms to her husband, standing in the doorway. His face full of surprise and relief. She could hear it in his voice too. Caroline met his eyes and tried for a wry smile, "It appears not." She agreed. Although she had been quite certain of it herself for a bit there. Not that Evander needed to know that. He was most certainly the protective sort and she rather suspected he might not want another child if she were to admit her own previous fears to him.

"Would you like to meet your daughter?" Caroline asked him, nodding down at the delicate creature in her arms. She was so in love with the child, she didn't even consider that Evander might be disappointed that it wasn't a son. Caroline certainly wasn't disappointed.

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   Evander Darrow

The familiar cadence of her voice was the only thing that convinced him this was not some apparition or deceitful mirage. She wasn’t dead, after all. And if she was well enough for some wry remarks, it could not have gone too disastrously, either – although Evander would have been lying to himself if he pretended his gaze was not raking over every part of her in view, assessing the pallor of her skin and the way her hair was still sticking with sweat about her brow and how the exhaustion was pulling at her face.

Finding nothing worse than that, he exhaled a long, slow breath at her question; shoved away the remainder of fear in his chest; and only then really noticed the bundle in her arms. “I –” His lip wobbled slightly, in trepidation or nervousness or general disbelief, or some exhaustion or overwrought relief of his own. He couldn’t say why. The two of them looked so peaceful, he almost didn’t want to intrude. But... a daughter. (Alfred had a boy; Oakby had told him to hope for a girl; Evander didn’t think he had it in him to be disappointed by anything at this juncture, though he was quietly praying the child had all ten fingers and toes.)

“Are you certain?” Evander tried, still dithering at the doorway. He cast a brief look over his shoulder, as if he could drag this scene down to the ordinary, pretend she was sitting in bed with a minor head cold and not their newborn daughter. “Isn’t there anything I can get you?” His mouth was dry. He didn’t know why his mouth was dry.

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   Caroline Darrow

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"Of course." Caroline started but he kept talking. She waited patiently for him to finish and then shook her head. "Just for you to meet her." Caroline told him patiently.

He seemed nervous. Was it because it was a girl? The doubt trickled into her mind but she was undaunted. Evander would meet his daughter and the second he did he would love her as much as Caroline did, she was certain.

Softening slightly, Caroline shifted the baby to one arm and used her free arm to pat the edge of the bed. "Come here Evander." She said softly, trying to encourage him.

  

Nothing he could do but cross the threshold properly, then – Evander was sure his footsteps felt thunderous as he paced over, feeling like a bull in a china shop even from feet away. Caroline already looked perfectly at ease with the world, being a mother; she shifted the baby in her arms as if she had done it a hundred times before. But then, she was that way with everything; she was never nervous at anything new.

And he – loved her so terribly, because or in spite of that. He was so afraid of losing her that he thought perhaps he ought to love her harder. Unless showing it more only ended up tempting fate? Because he couldn’t lose her now, not now they had a daughter. He simply couldn’t do it without her. Still, he came to sit down beside her, perching on the edge of the bed, and peered at the infant in her arms.

She was... well, an odd little thing. Like most babies he had seen. Evander had not seen them often enough up close to consider himself familiar with them, particularly, but it was quite evident to him that they all looked precisely the same. Wrinkly faces and stubby fingers and bulbous heads, and one could surely not find hide nor hair to differentiate them, whatever people said. Evander scrutinised their baby’s face intently, trying to discern some firm feature on the child’s face that he would be able to recognise again – but there were no obvious birthmarks. So he would just have to hope for the best with that.

Really, that fear ought to have tipped him over the edge into anxiousness, but instead Evander cleared his throat and reached out, hesitantly, for the baby’s stubby-fingered hand. He – well, he supposed he shook it, briefly, between his finger and his thumb, a little overcome with awe at the smallness and the fragility and the realness of her. “Oh,” he said, – “Oh,” he breathed again. But the lump in his throat rose until clearing his throat didn’t work, and a little sob came out instead. And then another heaved out of his chest before he could help it – some horrendous, distraught sound – as the tears began to stream.

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   Caroline Darrow

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Evander was perched so close to the edge of the bed that for a moment Caroline was quite certain he'd fall off it, rather than manage to remain in his seat, but at least he had entered the room. She gave him an enouraging smile, not that he noticed it, his eyes were looking at their daughter. And then, well Caroline did her best not to chuckle, it appeared he shook their daughter's hand. It was such an Evander thing to do that Caroline could not help the smile curving the edges of her lips or the amusement crinkling her eyes.

But then....Caroline was speechless. Her eyes widening. She'd never seen Evander cry. She'd seen him mad, upset, worried, ... but never this. The sounds he made, the tears coming out of his eyes. For once in here life Caroline did not know what to do, instead she let instinct take over and leaned forward, pulling Evander's face to her shoulder, wrapping her spare arm around him to hug him. And there, for the first time in her life, Caroline was able to hold her own family, so very dear and loved, to her, to surround herself in the simple love that knit them together.

  

She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind – Evander registered this faintly, through the haze of tears – but even the realisation was not enough to stop the deluge. Instead, the more he tried to stop crying, the more force it wracked him with: a huge, rattling sob, stress and relief and love and fear all at once. Caroline pulled him in, and this was all wrong because she had done all the work here and ought not to be the one comforting him, but he didn’t resist, there was nowhere else he could be right now but with them both, his face buried in her shoulder.

The crying was weeping now, emotion still coming in huge convulsive gasps and wet marks on her shoulders and tears clinging to his eyelashes and his cheeks and the end of his nose, but after what felt like decades he drew back and tried, insanely, to smile through it. “I’ve never been s–so happy,” he hiccoughed desperately, gazing between Caroline and the baby.

Their daughter wasn’t even crying, though babies were quite entitled to: Merlin, she was perfectly composed.

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In no time at all Evander's tears had soaked through the cotton of her nightgown, the creamy fabric turning translucent and clinging to the skin beneath. Caroline made vaguely soothing noises in his ear for both him and the baby as her hand smoothed up and down his back in a comforting gesture. The baby looked on, eyes wide and soaking in the world.

Finally Evander pulled back, his face wet and a smile on his lips. Caroline's smile broadened at his words and she bit back the joke on her lips, not wanting Evander to feel awkward at this display of emotion. Instead she told him the truth, "Me neither." The words whispered between them as she leaned forward and planted a light kiss on his lips, the taste of salt lingering from his tears.

  

Caroline responded with almost perfect grace, as she was wont to do (he felt she had restrained herself from something; she was still smiling a little too broadly to call it perfect grace), but by the time she kissed him, Evander was mostly recovered.

He could feel the regret and mortification setting in at the back of his mind, like a rain on the horizon blowing in from the east, and only hoped newborns remembered nothing of their infancy, or his daughter would never take him seriously for the rest of her (hopefully long, hopefully uneventfully happy) life.

So, in that space before the embarrassment gave him the inevitable urge to excuse himself, he returned Caroline’s kiss, on her cheek this time. He pressed another kiss to her forehead, letting his heartbeat slow to something steadier, and held his arm around her and the baby for a moment longer, until he felt wholly composed and calm again. “You must be tired,” he offered in sympathy and residual concern, looking at his wife as he wiped his eyes again.

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His lips were a gentle comfort one that Caroline leaned into. If only there was a spell that could pause this moment. That could encase them in the joy and happiness of such a perfect moment. Alas that there was not.

"I am." She admitted, an idea entering in to her mind. "Would you hold her while I rest a moment?" She hardly wished to hand over the child to anyone, but her daughter had a right to know the safety of her father's arms as Caroline had. Different in nature but much the same in virtue.

  

“Oh,” Evander uttered, a little taken aback even though her request was perfectly reasonable and entirely expected. But then: Caroline had never held a child like she was holding their daughter now, so it couldn’t be too difficult to manage, even for a first time. Evander’s expression flitted through a few emotions before settling on surrender, and he – awkwardly – bundled the baby from her arms into his from where he was perched.

Doing his best to mimic Caroline’s prior pose, Evander shifted his arms until he felt like this was a passable cradling motion, and the newborn relatively secure. Looking down at their daughter from here was a rather different experience, though: it felt as though the rest of the universe had fallen away, had narrowed to the space between their gazes. He was almost afraid to breathe, in case the slightest movement of his chest upset her calm. So far, so... But – Evander tore his gaze away to glance at Caroline again, to say but don’t fall asleep yet, please don’t leave us alone.

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Caroline knew in her entire being that she loved Evander and she loved this little child, she didn't think her love for either could bloom any further, but watching Evander settle their daughter in his arms brought a tenderness and love she hadn't expected. She smiled at them, her body relaxing, the words that she had never spoken to her husband reaching toward her lips. "I love you." But the words were a mere whisper of breathe as she fell into an exhausted sleep.

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   Evander Darrow