FIC: Always, About Everything (Thunderheart, Walter Crow Horse/Ray Levoi, PG-13)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: Always, About Everything
RATING: PG-13
FANDOMS: Thunderheart
PAIRINGS: Ray Levoi/Walter Crow Horse
SUMMARY: Their daughter is so small she's still sleeping in the bassinet beside their bed when Ray makes a decision. Written for Day 6 of Writer's Month 2019 for the prompt kids.

Maggie is so small she's still sleeping in the bassinet beside their bed when Ray makes a decision.

"We're going to be honest with her," he says one morning. He has Maggie cradled in one arm, holding the bottle for her with the other. "Always, about everything." He pauses. Then: "Except Santa. That's different."

Walter frowns. He sits down at the table with him, knees almost close enough to touch Ray's. "You certain about that?"

"Yeah, I am. It's helped in my relationship with you, and she's part of the family. The same rules apply."

Walter shrugs. "All right, honey. It's your funeral."

***

Maggie is sharp as a tack, and she's three when she asks where babies come from. Her parents sit her down and explain to her carefully about how men and women make babies. She is impressed, and understands, and it isn't the stressful conversation Ray imagined it would be.

That comes later.

Maggie is six when she asks a different question.

"Do you have sex with Daddy?" she asks Walter, her Pop, who is sitting at the table with her, both of them chewing on jammy toast while Ray makes eggs.

Walter takes the question in stride, but Ray promptly drops the carton of eggs, and there's a five minute game delay while he and Walter clean up the mess.

"Yes, I have sex with your daddy," Walter says once he can get back to his daughter and his toast, and Ray is preparing bananas with peanut butter instead. "Why do you ask?"

"You told me mommies and daddies had sex, but I wondered if daddies and daddies did. Since everything else is the same."

"Not everything else," Walter says gently. "But most things are."

Maggie nods. Then a serious look comes over her face and she says, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you have sex?"

Ray drops a stack of plates, and there's a ten minute game delay while each tiny shard of porcelain is located and carefully removed from the kitchen floor.

Ray brings the bananas over, a plate each, and sits down with his family to eat. "What do you mean, why?"

"You said sex is for making babies," she says, "but only girls can have babies, and you're both boys. So why do you have sex?"

Ray's mouth is open, but no words are coming out.

"It's fun," Walter says.

"Walter," Ray hisses.

Walter shrugs. "Total honesty was your idea. Are you sticking with it, or not?"

Ray frowns. He sighs. But then he nods.

He looks at Maggie, speaks slowly and plainly. "When grownups fall in love, it can be fun to have sex together."

"Okay," Maggie says, "but how?"

Walter is surprised when Ray doesn't actually pass out, and it takes him a long time to stop laughing.

***

Maggie is thirteen and locked on the other side of the bathroom door. She's crying, and Ray's not far behind.

"Honey, let me in, please," he says.

He listens to her cry. His heart hurts so much it's hard to breathe. He wonders what kind of charges he'd have to trump up to get away with arresting a fourteen-year-old.

He hears the lock click back, and he takes a step away from the door. It swings back, and Maggie fills the space. Her eyes are red and swollen, but she's stopped crying.

"Why wasn't I enough?"

He shakes his head. "Oh, Maggie. You're enough. You're everything. But he's a kid, still, and he can't see it. It'll get better as boys get older."

She sniffs. "When will it stop hurting?"

"A lot sooner than you think."

He takes a chance, steps toward her, puts his arms around her. She barrels into the hug, and Ray starts to breathe easy again.

***

Annabelle White Doe goes missing after school one Wednesday. Sixteen years old. She and Maggie are in the same class, and Ray has known her since she was in grade school. When she's not home by Thursday morning, Ray calls in the staties and reinforcements from the Rapid City FBI office, and they start a grid search. Hundreds of civilians help the law look for any sign of her.

It's getting dark Friday night when Ray finds the body stripped and posed in the cemetery. He blocks off the area, calls Walter on the radio.

"I found her. We're too late. Get these people out of here. I need forensics and I need lights, and I need these civilians to go home."

Walter works the crowds, and Ray works the scene. He takes pictures and collects evidence, and he drives the body to the medical examiner in Rapid City. He tries to sleep in an uncomfortable, plastic chair outside the morgue while the ME performs the autopsy, but he can't get his head out of the room behind him.

He's been thirty-three hours on the job when Walter has Danny drive him home.

"You get at least four hours of sleep, and eat something. Change your clothes, take a shower if you can. You're no good to me dead, Ray."

Ray is detached from time, but he finds the kids are home. Walter's folks are there, too, making sure they're safe and cared for. Ray wants sleep so badly his bones ache, but he comes into the house and it gets quiet, and Maggie looks at him like she's seeing a ghost.

They go into her bedroom, and sit facing each other.

"Gramma said Annie's dead," she says.

"Yes," Ray says softly. "I'm sorry, Maggie."

She takes in a shaking breath, but then she straightens her spine and looks him right in the eye. "I want you to tell me everything you know."

"No, you don't."

"We're honest with each other," she says, timbre breaking. "Always, about everything."

"I'm being honest with you," he says. "If you ask me again, I'll tell you everything. But I promise you, you don't want to know the things I know, and if I tell them to you, you will never be able to get them out of your head. This is not how you want to remember her, Maggie, I promise you."

She does cry now, her face buried in his shoulder, her hands shaky but struggling to hang onto him. "Tell me why. Tell me why people do this."

He holds her. And he's honest. "I don't know, baby. I've never known."

***

Maggie is seven months pregnant with her first child, and she is showing Ray where to put his hands so he can feel his grandchild kick.

"Feel it?"

He laughs. "Yeah. She's strong, just like you."

She looks at him. "I need to ask you something."

"You can ask me anything."

"Do you regret any of it?"

He studies her. "Any of what?"

"Me, the twins. You know, parenthood."

Ray releases a long breath. "I mean … there are things that, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I'd handled differently. But every step we took before us leads us here. So no. I don't."

She smiles. "Honest?"

He smiles back. "We're always honest in this family, Magdalena. About everything."

She grins in that way where he can see Walter and her namesake both at once.

"Just checking," she says, and they both laugh as the baby kicks again, inside her belly, under his hand.

Comments

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

Lovely. It reminds me of how time gets away from us and we don’t notice until it’s gone.

[carlyinrome.livejournal.com]

Hey, stranger! Yeah, that's definitely a valid way to look at this.