#9000 words of this Nonsense AU

[k-she-rambles]

Because I cannot just let this go: KOTORxSongmaster AU

Warnings for war, mentions of genocide, medical abuse, depression, vague implications of past assault (Atton is your friend but uh, he is not Nice), characters who don’t want to talk about sex talking about sex/infertility/impotence (it’s the repression paradox: the Forbidden Topic is talked about a lot because it’s Forbidden) and fantasy ableism. It’s Orson Scott Card. There’s Awesome and Ehh... NB: this is not how puberty blockers work IRL. I’m pulling things both out of my tuchas and from a work of fiction.

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It takes the Exile hours to realize what is distracting her, but also warning her of approaching droids, this foreboding that has burrowed under her skin.

She can hear the Peragus mining facility singing.

The creak of metal, the sizzle of lasers, the klaxon of the alarms. The oppressive silence that is more than the silence she is used to. And below that, fear.

It has been five years since she has heard anything sing.

§

(The Exile hears no songs.

She is not deaf, in the peculiar way the Songhouse reckons deafness –-not as the quality of being unable to hear with your ears, but being unable to hear your own nature, sung.

But it is not just herself she cannot hear.

The Exile hears no songs.

It is as if the universe and everything in it is dead. When Master Vrook speaks, she cannot hear what he really means, below the dry bluster. Kavar’s tone is neutral in a way that is entirely different from his Control. Atris’ voice has a song like bright wind over snow, but only in the Exile’s memory. When she speaks, it’s only a voice.

The Songmasters sing Malachor. They sing warmongering, betrayal, the Dark Side, and over all, loss. The Exile only hears it in a recording, years later: the loss of music meant the loss of songtalk.

At the last, the Exile ignites her lightsaber, and drives it into the stone. The sound is empty, empty, empty.)

§

Kreia’s Control is incredible, and so it is always gratifying when she reveals something of herself. When she speaks, she never uses songtalk.

Come to think of it, Atris doesn’t either.

§

It’s the holos of Malak as a Sith Lord that bother the Exile the most.

It isn’t that he was the first padawan to show her around the Jedi Songhouse enclave on Dantooine when she arrived. He took himself too seriously, even as a child, but he was kind. He asked her the questions the adults hadn’t thought to, and answered, unprompted, the questions she was afraid to ask.

It’s his jaw. Malak was a songbird, though the songmasters never placed him out. (It was always Malak who was the songbird, not Revan, who grew into her voice only as an adult.)

But the horrifying idea of Revan taking a songbird’s natural voice away isn’t it either. It’s that the Exile doesn’t believe for a second that it was to teach him a lesson. It’s easier to believe that Revan loved him, and that changes things, morphs the horror into pity for them both.

It it so wrong, she catches herself thinking, the impulse to silence a song that is in agony? To hear the pain which you have caused, and make it stop?

§

“Soo...” says Atton, nudging a broken piece of droid with a toe. “Songhouse, huh?”

“Mm.”

“Must be hard. No family, no, ah --”

The Exile snorts. “Typical.”

“No? ‘Cause I heard--”

“The Songhouse is a family, Atton. When I was brought in I was adopted. Legally.”

“...okay, so how does an ancient, galaxy-spanning organization legally adopt a kriff-ton of kids?”

“Illegally.”

Atton smiles at that, and it’s almost honest. No teeth.

The Exile relents. “It depends. The other thing, I mean. Species, biological sex, whether they thought you’d be a songbird when you were adopted.”

He makes a vaguely interested noise.

She continues breaking down the blaster rifle in her hands. “Once the puberty blockers wear off, those who might have borne children generally find they can’t —hence the Songhouse’s aggressive adoption practices.”

“Oh. That’s not too bad, then.”

She looks at him coolly until he flushes, two spots of color on a face that might have once been tan.

Sallowed by dissipated living. A follower. Without someone to lead him all he is is appetite –-that is Kreia, in her mind’s ear. Had it not been part of her gift of the voice, the Exile might not have separated Kreia’s words from her own thoughts. True, Atton looks like he hasn’t seen sunlight or a nutritionally balanced meal in years, but there is...

You have no natural talent for healingsong, says Kreia sternly, but does not correct the Exile’s assumption.

Atton is still babbling. “Not that, uh, I’m in a position to say.”

Her laugh is a small huff of air. “It’s what I grew up with. They say Ancient Selkath doesn’t have a word for wet.” She tries to sing Modesty, and doesn’t even get as far as don’t stare before her voice cracks and the song turns to ashes in her mouth. Stupid. Like poking at a missing tooth. She’d never had a problem not trying to sing when she was traveling alone.

“I know that one,” says Atton. “I meant...the rumors get really uh, colorful. I was being stupid. Earlier, I mean. I was –I meant to be filthy but didn’t mean it to be nasty if it’s something you can’t—”

She puts down the rifle. “I won’t die if I have sex, Rand.”

Atton looks anywhere but directly at her. “Right. Stupid.”

§

After years of silence, the music is distracting. Eddies and curls, the ticks in the hyperdrive, T3′s gears, Atton’s constant mindless not-quite-spoken chatter. Bao-Dur doesn’t realize he hums as he works, but she can pinpoint his location, his mood, and a sense of what he’s working on anywhere in the ship.

“I will teach you Control,” says Kreia, and the Exile bristles. She is not a Bell or a Breeze, learning how to breathe, learning Control for the first time. But she keeps Control, and obediently sits down to meditate.

She tries to imagine a lake in the mountains, surrounded by the walls of her Control, and fed by the meltwater of her life, just as she was taught. It is the reservoir of her songs, released only when she chooses, not in tears, or sudden flights of passion.

She hasn’t done this in years. Who knows what that lake might contain.

The image won’t come.

“Let go of what ought to be,” says Kreia. “I am only interested in what you are.”

The deep lake has become...something else. A marsh, a bog. The sweet, thick smell of decaying plants feeding the living ones. There is a sense of wet, but there’s no sign of where the water comes from, and no sign of what makes it stay. It’s like nothing she has ever encountered. “Is that...good?”

“It is you,” says Kreia.

§

Years of doing everything but sing with her voice have left their mark. Lightsong and darksong both sound mangled, strained. Once, the Exile could fill a room with sound, to the edges and no farther, with no distortions. Now, she is lucky to hum a healing without her voice cracking.

She doesn’t exactly regret not keeping her voice conditioned –-she could have sung in exile, technically. Did, once or twice—sung a familiar tune for a drink or a job, sung a lullaby to calm a crying child.

She could not bear it for long: a tone-deaf stranger pulled from the street would still sing from the overflow of of the life they bore inside them. She does not.

There was nothing there. She sounded like a corpse trying to carry a tune, no matter how correct her notes.

She tells herself the song would have only sounded like Malachor, anyway.

§

Atton has Control.

There are hints of it on Telos, but —

No. Atton sings.

The realization hits the Exile like a ton of bricks. Atton sings. It is not the same as having a song, for all living things (and many things that aren’t alive at all) have a song. Atton sings: with his body, with his thoughts, keeping his mind and his hands and his mouth vacuously busy in ways that any songmaster would call “wasting your songs.” But he’s doing it on purpose. He lets those who listen, listen, but they listen to a tune of his choosing.

It’s a gift of the voice. They aren’t rare, but there’s no usual form they take, and so they can be mistaken for other talents. Revan had a gift with languages. Poor Bastila had been saddled with battle song in a time of war. The Exile herself had a gift: the ability to catch the thread of any song and the power behind it, to harmonize with anyone, of any skill.

§

Revan was quick to sing of herself. You never knew all of what was going on in Revan’s head, but you always knew who and what you were following.

§

(“If a place there is not for the songs to come out,” Master Vandar says in her mind’s eye, one of her earliest lessons as a padawan, “Drown you will in all the things you cannot express. Inflict them you will on others, without knowing them yourself. A grave affliction it is. Even Sith songmasters sing. Sing we must, even if the tone needs correcting. Our debt to the galaxy it is.”

“What happens to padawans like that?” Revan asked.

“A question, that is not,” said Vandar, “for so many young ears.”)

§

(Don’t tell Alek, Revan had sung, a rare concession to ignorance over knowledge. They’d given Revan a name, at the Songhouse. They called her after her favorite historical figure. They’d called her Fiimma, the one who had to know Ansset’s song, who’d changed the course of the Songhouse by disobedience, courage, love. (which one depended on who you asked) Don’t tell Alek.)

§

On Goto’s ship, Atton finally sings of himself in his own voice.

The Exile hears war, hears following Revan, even as she changed, because she was worth following. She hears death, hears killing, and hears the part of him that loves death, that loves killing.

Atton sings, and the Exile hears Control, perfect Control, the kind that takes all emotions in and gives back nothing genuine, nothing uncalculated, nothing of his. High walls, a deep lake, cold and remote. A place of the drowning of the soul.

And then the singer, his singer, the one who let herself be caught, the one who broke open his Control by force. She sang the love song as she died –as Atton killed her, singing it back without voice, singing it back with a knife.

The Exile sings back her shock, wordless: Only one Songmaster of the High Room on Coruscant in recorded history had ever dared such a thing as his singer dared, and never by force.

“I won’t say that it is not –-” Atton’s songs are raw and awkward things, coming from a spring he did not carve, flowing through him like water, like smoke. He would not sing at all except he must. It feels like weakness, a bleeding wound, like something of his was taken away, even if he doesn’t want it back. “You’re not wrong, but –-” He sings, wordless, and she understands.

Atton knows, then, what Vandar had eventually told her, told Revan: a singer with Control who does not sing is a shame. A singer with Control who cannot sing is already dead. Marked for death. His singer had broken her Jedi oaths to save a single life.

It is no wonder that Atton has had such an uneasy relationship with songs and singers.

He wants the Exile to teach him anyway. He could be a shield, a knife in her hand. He wants to be.

She knows where to start. I will never hurt you, I will always help you. Atton sings it with a ferocity that takes her aback. Love does not end.

§

The Exile’s breath control gets stronger, her tone more clear. She hears Nar Shaddaa, hears the Ebon Hawk. More, she can hear and sing her companions. I’m glad to have you with me, she sings, and Bao-Dur’s and Atton’s backs straighten, despite only having a rudimentary grasp of songtalk. Maybe we can be friends. (Maybe, hums Mira, but it is open to the possibility, less hostile than it was.) I care about you, not the ways you are useful to me, the Exile sings, and Visas frowns, as if she doesn’t understand, as if songtalk were not the first language of all Miraluka.

I am listening, the Exile sings to Kreia, Your songs are full of distortions, but I hear you.

“Do you?” Kreia murmurs, gratified.

§

“What if there are monsters in the lake?”

In her memories, the Exile can never remember which of the Breezes she was meditating with had asked the question. No name or face gives her comfort. Bastila, about to be graduated early into Stalls and Chambers because of her gift, and already using ego to mask her fear? Juhani, who had come to the Songhouse late, and whose mood swings made her songs tempestuous? Belaya? Yuthura?

She was not wise like Vandar, or kind like Kavar, or firm like Songmaster Vrook. She had only been in the latter part of Stalls and Chambers, then, taking advantage the privilege of older padawans to teach the younger. It prepared them for adulthood, when they had to decide what to do with grown-up voices. She still wished they would have asked Master Zhar.

But they had asked her, and they deserved her answer.

“The monsters are songs, too,” she said, after a moment. “The ones you are afraid to sing.”

She meant to say don’t be afraid. She can only guess what the young ones heard.

§

Visas’ Sith songmaster master would sometimes take her voice, preventing her from singing the grief of her dead world. He is a hungry silence, more anechoic chamber than man. He drains the music from whatever he touches, chasing the echo of death, feeding on songs cut short, ended, lost.

Visas rarely sings her own songs, now. She sets them aside in favor of others’ --the Exile’s, or the echo of Nihilus’ power. It is not quite as viscerally terrifying as Atton’s song of Control: Visas instinctively knew that Control and Song are hand-in-hand. She does not keep Control when she cannot sing.

It is why, perhaps, she hides herself away and veils her face: emotions are strange and wild things, when you are used to singing them.

The Exile teaches her all the exercises and songs she remembers from childhood, and thinks of the Songmasters, trying to lose themselves on Nar Shadda, on Dantooine, on Onderon.

She does not think of years spent being a ringing silence herself.

§

Mira hears songs of individuals over distance, hears the distortion of people who aren’t home.

The Exile hones her pitch, teaches her how to grasp the song heard faintly and amplify it, singing it back so that it can be heard and healed. She teaches Mira posture, courage, how to stand and sing in any situation, even when you cannot stand: feet rooted, alert spine, breathe out, not up. No fear.

When Mira reappears after the Sith tomb on Dxun, joking with Bralor in his own tongue, there is a sense of something finally settled, a rhythm finally found.

§

“What did you learn in your exile? Visas asks.

The Exile rolls Visas’ lightsaber crystal in her hand, thinks of the smells of decay and of growing things, of water soaking up from the ground. She presses the crystal into the Miraluka’s palm.

“It is something like you learned, I think. I am alive. Song or no song or song-deaf. I am still here.”

“You think that is a good thing?”

“Why?” says the Exile, lightly. “Have you changed your mind about me? Are you going to lead me in chains before your songmaster?”

Never. The note is short and sharp, but there’s something the Exile can build on, there. My life for yours.

If you are frightened, I’ll be your friend, the Exile sings. The love song.

Visas scoffs, not recognizing it. “I do not fear death.”

Neither do you wish to live, the Exile does not say. “But you fear mine?”

“I regret it. I would delay it, if I could.”

The Exile smiles. “Then you’ll just have to keep keeping me out of trouble.”

§

The Exile had hoped to never set foot on Dxun again. It’s just as loud as she remembers, even with her dulled senses. It is not just the jungle --the moon rings with the memory of death and mines and fire and water, even though the fighting has long ago stopped. It’s either the echo of what came before, or the silence, after.

“It’s hard to hear myself think sometimes,” says Bao-Dur, “But being around you helps.” And: “I’m glad you let that old warrior go. I’m not sure I would have wanted to do the same.”

“It’s not always about what I want,” she says, gently. “There has been enough death and hatred, I think. So I chose.” She runs a towel over her hair, uselessly trying to get rid of some of Dxun’s damp, and adds “You wondered how I made it through without my songs. You don’t have to hear the song to make a choice.”

§

“Her influence threatens the integrity of the other students’ music!” says the recording of Songmaster Vrook. “She is like Ansset, and could doom us all.”

“That is a myth,” the Exile growls.

“Ahh,” says Bao-Dur, observing her without judgment. “I’m pretty sure Ansset was a real person. Last of the Three Imperators and one of the founders of the Republic? Ring a bell?”

The Exile crosses her arms. “He was a Songbird first and last. One of our greatest. The stories say,” she says, drawing the last word out, “that he could change people’s songs, even without singing. Make them feel whatever he wanted. Make them become what he wanted.”

“Creepy,” says Atton, at the same time Bao-Dur says “You’re nothing like that.”

“No?” says the Exile, and Atton is not sure if she is angry, or if that is some kind of loss or hunger in her face, her eyes.

Atton scratches the back of his head. “Well, sure. You can harmonize with nearly anyone. Even Kreia. You said that was your gift, not changing the songs of others.”

“This Vrook person called you dangerous in the same breath as average and disliked,” says Bao-Dur. “Are you sure he has even met you?”

She exhales, a small laugh. “He never liked me.”

“Then he is letting his personal feelings cloud his judgment, and you have your answer.”

§

Mandalore is deaf to songtalk, but his awareness is exceptional. “Your teacher is a fine hand at blocks, Exile.”

The Exile starts. She hadn’t thought of that, despite how teaching her to hear the thoughts of her companions exactly resembled shifting a block.

“Is there anything --”

“I’m not a doctor or a singer,” he says quickly. “You’d know more than I. But no, I don’t think she has bound any of us with anything stronger than blackmail.”

But she could, if she was resisted, lays unspoken between them.

§

The Exile came home, with the singers who would become Revan and Malak, once, four months before the full council sanctioned the intervention that had been going on eight months already.

Eight months of the background noise of war, strategy, and troop movements.

There were children practicing in the courtyard. Stalls and Chambers, she guessed, most with their own lightsabers. They wore white tabards over their tunics.

One of them tried to catch her eye, aware of where she had been and brimming with questions. He was good at noticing patterns in music. She’d tutored him on using that skill to hearing the harmonies between people, to expand it further, outwards, and notice patterns on the large scale. “Sing with us!”

The Exile shook her head. She hadn’t needed Revan’s warning: she knew war had changed her songs. To sing with anyone younger than Singer would be to threaten the purity of their self-expression, Revan had said, so perfectly mimicking Vrook that both the Exile and Alek had doubled over laughing. Revan had meant it, all the same.

“I don’t think I should.”

Words were enough, with his keen hearing, or perhaps it was her gift combined with his, and there was a harmonic between them already. The padawan sang it back: took what he heard in her voice and expanded on it, sang you are a shield for us, even in your silence, you couldn’t just do nothing, you will do it because you can.

There was something new in his voice, a thread of determination backing up his joyful curiosity. Here was one who could see a threat to all he had ever known and still sing in the face of it.

But the echo of death rarely came to Dantooine, in those days. He’d never seen it. She had.

The Exile sighed, all caution made useless. “Your chamber-master is going to kill me.”

“What is Atris going to say?” he said, amused. “I chose to sing it, so it is part of my song now.”

§

“I don’t hear anything different,” says Vrook. There’s no lie in his voice. “Your voice is not as good as it was, and you still have no songs.”

“But I sing!”

“I can’t deny that I see the effects of music. You make sounds, and things happen. And yet it is difficult to believe.”

The Exile waits. Perhaps Vrook’s lack of affection for her will allow him to tell her something that Zez-Kai Ell and Kavar could not.

“I see that you wrap the songs of your companions around you, but can you sing me a song of yourself?”

“And influence your songs, Master Vrook?” says the Exile. Her Control holds her steady enough to give her space to wonder why the question made her afraid, and, because she was afraid, angry. “‘Corrupt the purity of your self-expression’ with something you were never meant to know?” If she sang of Malachor, like Ansset sang of his life when he returned to the Songhouse, would it be mercy or cruelty? Even in Ansset’s time, it had been a close thing, a knifeblade either way, and it had been the experiences of one man, one who had never known war.

She carries Malachor around her like a cloak. A thousand songs in agony, a thousand voices silenced at her order. It is foolishness to think she does not.

“Hmph,” says Vrook, but there is a grudging and temporary respect as he gives her one last lesson.

Kreia, on the other hand, is incensed. “What fool denies wisdom offered to them? The tree that does not lean into the wind, does not withstand the storm. This planet and it’s people have seen pain, and is he processing it, or his own? Pah! He is ‘keeping his songs pure.’ And you,” she says, rounding on the Exile. “Do not think you are protecting anyone by your silence. They will learn or they will break.”

§

I’m sure I know you, the Exile sings, from behind the Disciple.

“I am sure I just have one of those faces,” he responds.

“That was songtalk.”

The Disciple turns around, his expression wry. “So it was. You do remember me.”

§

She does remember the padawan in Stalls and Chambers who sang her own song back to her, and he remembers her.

“The music, that is easy to forget,” he says. “With no need for Control to store your songs, and no need for singing. The stone of the Songhouse is my childhood home, my foundation, but when I grew up became a soldier, not a singer.” And: “The songmaster I would have chosen, the one meant for me, was lost.”

Lost, not dead. Her decisions had echoes she had not accounted for. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” says the Disciple. He gestures to the rubble around them. “I left the Songhouse before all of this. I had skills the Republic could use. Besides, I had already begun to have doubts when the Songmasters couldn’t hear the purity of your intentions. I did not want to be a part of the Songhouse if it would punishyoufor doing the right thing.”

“Purity of intentions does not mean I did the right thing,” says the Exile. “It’s easy to lose sight of what the right thing is in war.”

His amused smile hasn’t changed at all, nor his habit of hearing what she won’t say. “It would not kill you to admit that you have definitive opinions on the justice of your sentence.”

“Do you still wish to come with me?”

“I do.”

She takes his hand. “Will you sing with me, Mical?”

§

She finally gets a long conversation with Kavar.

It is good to see a friendly face.

He says much of the same things Vrook had: that her songs are a casualty of the war; that mortality is not conducive to song. His song is placid, calming. He is not lying, but he is not telling her everything, either. I can wait, the Exile thinks.

No. It is what Kavar is singing. You can wait. All things in time. The threat will reveal itself in time.

Not everyone has that luxury, Songmaster, she sings. Some who think they do, do not.

“How do you know what would have happened?” he counters. They are definitely not just talking about whatever is hunting Jedi. “Do you see what was lost because of Revan’s recklessness. Yours?”

“Do you not think I know what I did? Do you not think I carry it with me?”

I know you do, he sings. The apology is genuine, but it is as much apology as she is ever going to get. There is a sadness there, too, as if she has failed to learn something vital.

“The future is in flux and the past is a song already sung,” says the Exile. What’s done is done.

“Oh, my dear,” says Kavar. “Nothing is ever done.”

§

Someone, it seems, either in the Songhouse or in the Republic army, has taught the Disciple how to lay and remove blocks, and with his reopened connection to his songs, he is quickly combining the two, to devastating offensive and defensive effect.

In time, she thinks, the others will seek him out, let him sound out the shape of their minds, and make sure there are no nasty surprises there. Ask him to lay a few blocks of his own, against horror, against paralysis and confusion.

Well, she thinks. Everyone but Atton, who dislikes the Disciple, blocks, and people who deal in them.

§

“A word, songmaster?” says the Disciple.

She steps into the medbay.

The Disciple places his hands behind his back, but not before she can see that his hand is injured. “It’s about our pilot.”

Wonderful.

“He was asking some rather pointed questions, and I --” he clears his throat. “What I mean to say is that I’ve been away from the Songhouse long enough to know what is and is not my business.”

The Exile hums her confusion.

Mical shifts his weight onto his right foot slightly, and back again, a strange break of Control, for him. “For all that Atton’s ignorance of Modesty is startling, his song for you is-- what I mean is that there will be no back-singing from me, songmaster.”

The Exile pinches the bridge of her nose, comprehension finally dawning. Were they in the Songhouse, they would have never broached this subject. “Are you expecting a thank you?”

The Disciple lifts his chin, but blushes.

§

After that, it’s not entirely a surprise when Atton wanders into the cockpit with a cold pack over his eye --kolto is too valuable to waste on inter-crew spats. He waves off her hands when she takes off her gloves and reaches for him. He sits, and hums his own healing, looking pleased with himself when it works.

“All right,” says the Exile. “What happened?”

Atton looks sheepish, the mirror to Mical’s blush. “Uh. You remember the question I asked you, when we first met? About growing up Songhouse?”

“...yes?”

“Well you didn’t answer it all the way. You said how it worked for you, and said it was different for others. So I asked Mical.”

Sithspit. She stares at him. Asking questions, Mical had said. A startling ignorance of Modesty. Mical was trying to be gracious. “You deserved that.”

“Yeah. Well. I know that now. Matter of fact, I now know a whole hell of a lot of things I didn’t need to know, because after punching me in the face on principle, and explaining why you never ask a Songhouse kid that question, Mical treated me to a very nice lecture on the science of pain receptors and their connection to hormones, all the drugs you and he are allergic to, and a graphic theory on what happened to Darth Malak’s face. Which I really did not need to know.”

He has a point. “Sorry.”

Atton leans back, bracing his feet against the bottom edge of the control panel, and putting his hands behind his head. She knows better than to think he’s actually relaxed. “Why’d you answer my questions the first time, anyway? I probably would have wound the Disciple up about it, just to be an asshole, but I do like to know how much of an asshole I am before I really commit.”

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly. There’s no answer that she wants to give that is satisfactory: they either say too much or too little.

“I’m sorry. That those things happened, I mean,” he adds, when she raises an eyebrow. “To you, to Mical, to kriffing Darth Malak and Revan, even. Family should make you stronger, not...not limit your choices like that.”

“Ancient Selkath doesn’t have a word for wet,” she reminds him, softly.

“I know that,” he says, pulling his feet down from the ledge. “That doesn’t mean that wet didn’t actually exist.”

She is going to have to think about that one.

“Really makes me think, though. I’m not sure that I’m comfortable joining the Songhouse, if this...you know, big on bodily autonomy, me.” The last part twists, discordant, both truth and lie.

The Exile sighs. “I was disowned when they cast me out, Atton. If you want to join the Songhouse, you’re going to have to ask someone else.”

He snorts at that suggestion. “Not likely.” His clothes rustle as he squirms in his seat, crossing his arms and looking away. Rather follow you, he adds, singing so softly that the Exile can’t be sure if he sang with his voice or his mind. “Besides,” he says, louder, a bit too rapidly, “pretty sure they’re going to have to welcome you back, anyway. They’re a few singers short of a full chorus, and you’re the only Jedi Singer I’ve met with any sense.”

“Har, har,” she says, nudging his seat with a toe. “You’re right, you know. If the Songhouse survives all this, things will have to change.”

Atton swallows. “You know,” he says slowly. He still doesn’t look at her. “You know. If it’s worth anything, the Disciple told me he cleared all his medical checks when he left the Songhouse. You couldn’t hurt him. Unless you were into that, I guess.”

The Exile opens her mouth. Closes it. “Atton –”

“Don’t make fun. Kid’s got a heart like a star and the song in it is yours. Kriffing annoying, but if you haven’t heard him, you haven’t been paying attention.”

She throws her gloves at him and flees the cockpit.

§

The so-called Lord of Pain wraps himself in music, is barely anything besides song stitched together with veins of Control. He is loud, too much. He makes the Exile’s bones ache. Silence, she sings, breath, darkness.

Life without song, he sings. Impossible. Death.

Not death. Something else.

There is nothing else. Only hunger, only void. I do not wish to die.

You are not at peace.

Are you?

§

“Were you Revan’s teacher?” the Exile asks.

“Revan had many teachers,” says Kreia.

The Exile waits.

Kreia looks at her a long time, and then opens her mouth and sings Revan.

At least, as well as Revan can be sung by someone who isn’t Revan herself. Her song always lent itself to being projected upon by others.

It is answer enough.

§

Malak sings action over the Jedi Council’s inaction. Malak sings of the Mandalorians, sings rumors of death on the Outer Rim, sings innocents in danger, sings the Republic asking for help and finding none.

Outrage, sing the singers on the Exile’s left and right. War.

War, sings Malak. War. Outrage. The Songhouse has failed.

Illusion, sings the Exile. The figures on her left and right ignore her. Malak looks at her with a twinkle in his eye.

She’d forgotten what a pompous bastard he could be. “Alek, this is not the song we sung.”

Something had to be done.

“That’s true. But we set out to save the Republic, not throw down the stones of the Songhouse.”

Malak smiles at her, as if he knew she would agree with him, eventually. “You know that was never Revan’s desire. If you had heard what Revan heard...”

“If I had heard what Revan heard, I wouldn’t be here,” the Exile snaps. She hears the truth in it as she says the words. “If I had been following Revan, and not myself, do you think she still would have chosen you over me?”

She’s made him angry now, the line between memory and vision blurring. “They will remember me, little sister. They will not remember you.”

The Exile closes her eyes. Opens them. “I decided that Revan would not arrive with reinforcements. And so I closed the trap. I destroyed the Mandalorians. I destroyed my own forces. I won the war. But Revan delayed. I was loyal to the cause, not to her. I wasn’t intended to survive. I know that now.”

What Revan had heard had altered her song, even as it remained wholly hers, like hearing Ansset’s had changed little Fiimma’s.

Revan had not been able to hear the change.

“I don’t have to justify myself to you, Malak. I don’t have the luxury of saying I did what I was told, or that I was hoodwinked, somehow, by Revan’s charisma. I chose, and I can’t change the past. But my choices were not your choices. My reasons were not your reasons, nor should they be.”

“Wake up,” says Malak, almost pitying. “You have to wake up.”

You were going to be the songbird of Taris, Alek, she thinks. What was it that tipped the scales? Following Revan to Korriban? What Revan found in the wreckage of Malachor V? What happened after the Mandalorian War ended? Where did you go?

She ignites her lightsaber and grits her teeth, staring the illusions in the eyes.

She loses.

§

She hears the fear in the voices of her soldiers, and thinks she understands. “Let me go up, Captain.” I will do it. I will do it. Her voice cracks. She remembers the loyalty of her soldiers, the songs she had with them. Dxun was full of life, just as it was full of death.

She disables the mines by hand.

Was it wasted? Her soldiers ask. Did it mean something, in the end? Did we matter?

§

“I can’t. I won’t.”

Apathy is death, sing the illusions, a drone that rattles her bones.

The Exile almost drops her lightsaber.

Refusing to die is not quite the same as choosing to live, but she wouldn’t call it death. A stupor, a blindness, a sleep, part infection and part choice.

Kreia was right to ask if she’d found what she was looking for among the dead. Mical was right to chide her about sidestepping. It had been so easy to not to care, not to matter, not to remember that at the core of her was cold Songhouse stone, warmed by many hands.

Had she always been strong enough to bear it, or is she stronger, now?

How does this song end? asks the illusion of Kreia. The illusion uses songtalk where Kreia would not. The effect is unsettling. “Either you conclude it, or the echoes go on forever, unfinished.”

§

There is nothing in a dark nexus that you do not bring with you.

She crosses blades with the apparition of what she might have become, had she truly been Revan’s left hand as Malak was her right, and thinks it again, a mantra: There is nothing in a dark nexus that you do not bring with you.

She has always been able to sing in the face of death.

There is nothing in a dark nexus that you do not bring with you.

So what is this? She ducks her own blade and makes a run for it. She can’t keep her breath enough to sing.

Of course she’d seen the changes in Revan and Malak. She’d seen the changes in herself. But she had set her face long before Malachor: she had always intended to present herself for judgment. She had broken faith with the Jedi Council, and she believed she was right to do so, but such actions always had consequences.

She would not have followed Revan into the outer reaches of the darkness. She already had followed her to Dxun, to Malachor V, and through the nothing beyond. There has to be something she is not seeing.

The eyes of the specter are empty. There is no song in her, though her songs are as solid and cool as stone.

It is frightening, in an abstract way, but the Exile finds herself oddly detached from the fear. As if this battle is familiar.

There are no songs for this.

It is time to go home.

§

She hears the Disciple’s confession, and it occurs to her that Mical is angry. Angry in the same way that Atris was angry. Atris chose not to follow, and Mical had been too young to. That for all his Control, for all that he thinks and thinks and thinks, turning his problems over in his mind note by note, his sunny disposition is fought for, and won.

Mira calls Mical a tame kath-hound.

She is right. May the fates help whoever tries to take what he defends.

“The Seeker who brought you to the Songhouse named you well.”

“Do you think?” says Mical, and the song in his voice is bitter. “I always thought it was cruel. Someone who doesn’t look like much, named after the Emperor of the Galaxy. Mikal the tyrant.”

“Father Mikal,” says the Exile, gently. “You are an historian. You know this.” History had recorded Emperor Ansset’s heir, Ephrim son of Josif, as the first Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, but it was a Republic that the tyrant had dreamed of. The Songhouse remembered: Mikal was the father of the Republic. The tyrant who loved the greatest Songbird in history as a son.

“Do you not think,” says Mical, slowly, “that you will make it through this?”

“Something is coming,” she says, finally. And then, pitching her song to cut through the ambient noise of the Ebon Hawk: I have given each of you all I can. The legacy of the Jedi is in your songs.

Bao-Dur snorts, softly. He heard the undercurrent of the song. She suspected he would. He closes a panel on Remote, and she hears the same tune back. He has been listening to her lessons with the others.

Mira nods decisively at something. Time to stop running.

Visas waits. It will come when it will come.

Atton slams a storage compartment, suddenly, inexplicably, and incandescently furious.

§

“Wait, General,” says Bao-Dur. The Exile turns, and words seem to fail him then, because he sings: hope and anger, weariness and rest, vengeance and choices, all rolled up into a question.

She considers him seriously, and presses an off-hand lightsaber into his palm. “Your choice, of course,” she says, lightly, warmed by his trust, his faith. “But you’ve always seemed to thrive on the impossible. If you think you can defend the innocent with song, without malice against the enemy, then you can.” I believe in you.

Bao-Dur bows his head.

The Exile ignites her lightsaber. “Now, are you going to show me what you’ve learned from spying on everyone else, or are you going to stand there and let me lecture you?”

Bao-Dur laughs, his dry, quiet laugh so like her own, and it sounds like try me. “I’ll take practical experience any day.”

§

All she hears in this place is loss.

She takes off her armor, stashing it quietly in an anteroom just inside the door of the enclave. There is power running now, and she hears the fountains ahead, signs of human habitation. Signs of life.

There is an ache in her chest. She breathes deeply, slings a robe over her shoulders for the first time in nearly a decade. She is not part of the Songhouse, but she is a singer, and songmaster to other singers. She respects the wisdom of the Songmasters, but the near extinction of the Songhouse and her exile have made her a peer.

It is good to see things rebuilt. The green of growing things, the sounds of the fountains, the murmur of voices waiting for her.

But all she hears in this place is loss.

It is strange: conventional wisdom holds that grief unharnessed weakens song, but her heart is full to bursting with something indefinable. She could sing here, and shake the walls down.

She forges on, past the fountains. She does not hear Kreia follow her, nor Visas follow Kreia.

§

The Songmasters tell her of the gathering on Visas’ homeworld, of songs not just cut short, but emptied.

They’d seen an echo of something coming for them, and had gathered, thinking numbers might clarify the vision.

No, Atris had suggested numbers might clarify the vision.

It was Atris who had convinced the Republic to contact the Exile.

Atris, the historian, the archivist, who could not justify leaving her post and following her heart. Atris, whose song, in the Exile’s memory of their last encounter, spoke of bitterness. Atris who surrounded herself with Handmaidens who were deaf to song. To the changes in a song.

I was an historian, Kreia had said. I found more questions than the Songhouse could answer.

§

“Songmaster,” says Mical, turning back towards the dormitory. There is resolve in his tone. “It is not Kreia who has shaken you so.”

She gives him a level look, already seated on the meditation rug Visas bought for her on Onderon.

He tries again. “What did the Songmasters say to you?”

“The Songmasters are dead.”

“And Atris has betrayed us, yes. Songmaster.”

The Exile sits back. “Why are you here, Mical?”

“I was worried about you.”

“No, why are you here? I influenced your songs as a child. What is to say I’m not doing so now? Do you not wonder why you follow me?”

You are a parasite, spits Vrook in her mind’s eye. Forming bonds, leeching off the connections of others. Your gift of the voice has always given you undue influence over the minds of the young and wayward.

“I follow you because I believe what I heard from you all those years ago, songmaster,” says Mical. “I see with my eyes that it is still the case. I admire you. But the galaxy does not revolve around any one person, though any one person can dedicate themselves to defend it. You taught me that.”

The Exile fixes her gaze somewhere above his left ear. “At Malachor, it was –I assumed my songs were taken away, or that I was deafened by what I heard. But I stopped my own ears. The other side of my gift of the voice: if I can harmonize with anyone, I can also not.” She looks down, at the rug, at the decking. “I knew. I’d always had a knack for that trick. I pulled it on Revan once, right before a performance. I don’t remember why. Got the mother of all lectures from Songmaster Sunrider. But I knew, if I would have let myself remember.”

Mical sits in front of her, legs crossed. “You heard something you could not bear. To hear so much death at once would have killed you.”

“But to cut myself off from all song to stop listening? You can imagine the Songmasters’ reactions.”

Mical does not smile at this. “They thought you were the source of the echo of death that has followed us.”

“I am the bait. And I do carry something with me.” She looks away. “Malachor V is not gone. The song of the universe is suffering there, and I carry it, not as a cloak, but inside...”

It is like Mical cannot hear it. The Exile’s voice is empty. There is nothing of herself in it. What she has become is worse than what Atton was before: Her true song is the death of song, and the songs of others. She grows in strength from death, and from her companions. She uses her gift of the voice to sing what she hears, to sing her friends voices, their songs, to sing to the living. Everything in her song is chosen, gathered, borrowed, stolen. Not hers.

“And you think that is a matter of accident?” says Mical. “That you sing of life and living when you know also the songs of death and ending? That you spin songs from what you hear, and from the people who love you?”

She thinks of the twisted brightness around a black hole. She thinks of a bog, the water coming up from the ground, and the ground itself made of drowned plants. Death feeding life feeding death, on forever.

Mical nods, satisfied. “It is possible to be afraid of death, and so delay to make choices that will save more lives. That is why the Songmasters have failed where you have not. You know what it will take, and you are not afraid.”

“I am afraid.”

“But not of dying.”

No. Never of that.

§

She follows Kreia to Telos, to Atris.

The cacophony of darksong around her is unbearable. The Exile stops her ears and listens to the frightened woman in front of her instead.

She does not think to query the voices around her.

§

I have authored so much death, sings Bao-Dur. Let my song end saving something instead. I will die in a different way if I do not.

§

I do not fear, for in fear, lies death. I am not afraid to die, but no longer do I loathe my life. I ask you, finally, to forgive me for the path I took when I lost my way. It has taken time for me to return here. I’ve been stronger for the journey. What happens now shall not be done out of hate, or revenge, but for the sake of all life.

This body is a prison no longer.

Visas stands. “Let us go.”

§

“And so that is why you fight,” says Visas. “To prove Revan wrong.”

“Not Revan,” says Mandalore, rising.

§

Darth Nihilus is a hunger, a void with will, an eater of songs, a silence.

He dies like a mortal man in the end.

§

There is a place, the Exile knows, beyond all song. Beyond light, beyond dark, and in which there is nothing but oneself.

It is not this place.

The Exile stalks the broken surface of Malachor V. She stalks the halls of the Academy, the crucible Revan found and founded, a festering wound the Exile created. This is a place meant to break the innocent, to drive them to let go of song, or grow stronger in defiance. To change, or die.

She thinks of Atton’s songs, grown strong in spite of everything. Mira standing tall. Visas singing to herself of small pleasures. Bao-Dur surrounded by green and growing things. Mical, looking to the future clear-eyed and singing anyway. Mandalore’s steadiness. HK. T3.

She thinks of the echoes of Malachor V. Lives lost, future lost, a planet in agony, only held together by residual gravitic anomalies, the echo of the weapon that won the war.

(She can only hope Remote has found its way)

She will sing here.

She will shake the walls down.

§

She sends her students back to the ship.

Her face is set towards Trayus Core.

She does not notice Atton turning back.

§

“Wish I’d...never met you,” says Atton, and it sounds like I will always help you.

“You’re a damn liar,” says the Exile, trying to ignore the blood, trying to sort cauterized and uncauterized wounds, praying Kreia’s tutoring in healingsong will be enough. There’s nothing she can do for his eye, and likely not his arm either, but she was just fast enough and it is possible if any of them die today it might not be him. “You are never where you are supposed to be and you have always been a pain in my ass.”

“Ha-ohh, it hurts to laugh.” He reaches up a hand, and touches two bloody fingers to her cheek before it falls heavily back again. “At least I’m…good, good at it. Save...save your strength. Sion’s still out there.”

“He had better be,” the Exile growls. “You’re going to have a few dashing scars.”

“Liar. Was always ugly. Now my outsides...match my insides.” He hums and the song is his. Just his. “Thought I would never see...another face again. And then you were there again. Thought being a Singer was like breaking Control. Like giving up. But it made me more myself. You need to go.”

She’s aware that she is crying. She needs Control. “Don’t be a fool.”

“There are worse...things I could be.” His face twists. “Wish I could...have told her that. Sounds different...when you say it. Like you’re saying...something else.”

§

The Exile methodically weakens Sion’s Control.

In the end, he goes.

In the end, she sings Farewell for him, too.

§

Kreia hates Song, even as she sings, even as she knows that all living things have song, whether they hear it and sing it or not. Kreia loves the Exile, even as she tries to kill her.

§

You don’t have to hear the song to make a choice, the Exile sings, in a brief respite from whirling lightsabers. Life does not only consist of struggle. The answer to life’s betrayal is not silence. No silence is absolute. There is always something left. There are echoes. Nothing is ever done.

There is only yourself.

No. That which you cannot touch still exists.

§

I do not want your mercy, Kreia sings, though I thank you all the same. “I imagined this day, and wondered if you would offer. I wanted you to say those words. I did not imagine that I would lose the thread of all my desires and plans. That I would spurn my defeat. That in the end all I would want is for you to be complete.” You have been the best of them.

The Exile nods.

“Farewell, Exile,” says Kreia, and it sounds like the love song.

§

Atton leans against the doorway, a Jedi’s cloak shrouding the ruin of his arm. There’s a kolto patch over his eye again. The Exile listens, and hears the echoes of Mikal’s grudging acceptance that nothing short of sitting on the pilot’s still-healing gut wound would keep him from waiting.

Everyone is waiting.

“Mira said someone ought to see if you needed carried out,” he lies.

The Exile raises an eyebrow. From the way he’s swaying, she is the one who is going to be doing the carrying.

“Don’t just stand there, we have a bomb about to go off. And I see that look. I figure we have a long way to go to get to wherever we are going next. If you, you know, happen to need a pilot.”

§

The song of Malachor V ends, its echoes no longer unfinished. They are carried forward in the voices of the lives it touched; the memory of song.

§

I will never hurt you. I will always help you. If you are hungry Ill give you my food. If you are frightened I am your friend. I love you now. And love does not end.

[thegoodomensdumpster]

I WATCHED GOOD OMENS IN FRENCH SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

and it wasn’t that bad. Here are my thoughts, barely edited as I wrote most of them while watching the show.

EP 1

OK i like god’s voice so far

possibilité d’embarras gastrique is a good formulation, I wonder if it’s the same in the book ( I think I kinda need to read it in french now...)

aghghdhgs « primo-délinquants »

of course subtitles don’t match the audio for a variety of technical reasons but when you get things that have very different underlying meanings i find it… not good This one about Crowley being evil / a demon : subtitles : « c’est ton travail » - « it’s your job » audio : « c’est dans ta nature » - « it’s in your nature » i mean dang

crowley sounds like a little shit asking az about his sword

« T’AS FAIT QUOUA » - he just loses his shit (kinda giving me some le coeur a ses raisons vibe)

ok crowley sounds very nerdy when he tries to explain that he took down the phone network, i think i actually like this voice acting

ligur sounds… very suave (im a little ill at ease)

crowley getting called mon chou by satan freddie mercury is a thumb up from me

i see the part where aziraphale speaks japanese wasn’t dubbed over and we can still hear michael sheen. it’s a bit disturbing considering french aziraphale has a higher pitched voice (and he sounds soooo much more anxious than sheen, give this angel a xanax )

“sandwich bœuf cresson” ( beef and cress sandwich ) deirdre really who makes this kind of sandwiches

im being reminded that the chattering nuns prepared little cut outs for their explanation about the antichrist switch… such dedication to useless crafts (it made me laugh on my first viewing and it’s still funny to imagine that some of them either ordered or built these things themselves just so they could make this two minutes long presentation for the most important act of their satanic nun careers)

retire-toi vil démon infernal, créature des abysses XD i swear az doesn’t sound even remotely convinced when he is saying the « get thee behind me foul fiend » line in french, it’s just too over the top for credibility, it sounds like it’s straight out of some super intense dnd session

they still can’t say bouillabaisse (which, like, weird because french, but still valid). nice touch is crowley couldn’t say soupe de poisson (fish stew) either and said poupe de soisson (sish ftew)

warlock mah boy how can you be a teenager and not like dinosaurs

c’est un dinosaure un nullosaure plutôt - apply burn heal

La façon dont warlock s’est exclamé « C’EST NUL » m’a fait penser au nain de naheulbeuk

the english version has nothing on french speaking aziraphale for the second hand embarrassement during the magic tour. it’s over 9000 i literally hid my head in my jumper when he was presenting harry the bunny. Horrible experience, 0/20, would not recommend

EP 2

oooh agnes has a lovely voice !

why is young newton having such a quality dub for the three sentences he has to say

dick turpin’s name is jesse james (tbf dick turpin is not known AT ALL in france, i discovered him reading good omens)

shadwell is pure chaos (as expected). No particular accent for him though, the chaotic energy was probably enough. Would have made me laugh if he had like, a chti or a marseilles accent.

aziraphale is so fucking stressed out by crowley’s driving i thought he was gonna explode

« tu es un gentil garçon » => « you’re a nice boy » said az to crowley DANG THAT’S SO INFANTILIZING AZIRAPHALE YOU’RE TALKING TO A DEMON FROM HELL NOT TO PINOCCHIO

ARGH FIRST MON ANGE OF THE SERIES i’m hit straight in the heart

anathema’s mom doesn’t have a spanish / latino accent at all when talking in spanish…. why...

dog being called toutou is definitely adorable (it’s basically « doggy » but way cuter imo)

tickety-boo has become ça gaze. that’s valid. it’s corny but i still use it unironically from time to time so ... i stan

EP 3

« je répands la fomentation » « i’m here spreading foment » « quoi tu fais des crêpes au froment ?????? »  « what you’re making crêpes with wheat ??? » love the fact that we shoehorned in one more ref to crêpes

az called crowley mon cher camarade, unintentionnal communist propaganda ftw

« pas de repos pour les… bah, pour les bons » « no rest for the… good »  – az was so deflated about the ineptitude he realized he was saying, he felt zero percent commited to his sentence

i was wondering how they would play aziraphale not being able to speak french in the bastille and they opted to have him stutter a bit and say to his executionner « excuse me i’m anxious » XD

« vous êtes le 999e aristo à mourir par mes soins. Mais vous êtes le premier en costume beige » « you’re the 999th aristocrat I’m going to kill, but the first one in beige attire » yeah i guess now that az isn’t english anymore his most noticeable feature is his cream aesthetic

« c’est au cas où ça tournerait en eau de boudin » « j’ADORE le boudin » => « in case it all goes pear shape » - the literal translation featuring food in french is « turning into black sausage water ». I don’t know what pear shaped inspires to english native speakers but the mere mention of boudin always make me giggle, it’s such a funny word and such a funny food

OH !!! no terrence rampa for the tv series, we’ve got anthony J. rampa. Rip terrence petit démon parti trop tôt :’(

« tu roules trop vite pour moi rampa » SERIOUSLY i know we can still infer « rouler » (here as in driving, but literally rolling) as a metaphor for their relationship but you could have said TU VAS TROP VITE that would have been so much better argh

has anathema got an emergency stock of potteries to break in case of emotionnal crisis ?

« Rampa, un démon très futé, il m’oblige à redoubler d’effort » « crowley, a very clever demon, he forces me to make double the amount of effort » oh so admitting you’re making an effort there aziraphale ? :))))))

dang i really want to know how shadwell said that major milk bottle died because not only did he die in combat but aziraphale’s reaction is a bit intense, it must have been quite a tale (this could be a crack fic prompt : «The Epic Tale of the Death Of Major Witchfinder Milk Bottle, by Sargent Witchfinder Shadwell» )

des sorcières et des phénomènes sorciéreux x)

CROWLEY CALLED AZIRAPHALE DUCON ?????? EXCUSE ME ????? #NotMyCrowley #CrowleyWouldNeverDoThat  #CancelAnthonyJRampa2K20  => ducon would be an insult, the gathering of du and con, con being a very nasty but common swear word, and associating it with du- makes it extremely patronizing. it’s like « absolute pathetic digraceful moron +++ ». thanks i hate it *frowny face *

EP 4

l’apocalypse c’est pour aujourd’hui juste après le goûter : it could be translated as « apocalypse is scheduled for today right after tea time » except that « goûter » is not quite tea time but rather the little sugary snack kids take when they come back from school and that most adults drop out of (i haven’t and i’m sure az hasn’t either). thanks aziraphale for having exclusively food related notion of the time because tbh same

ligur has no right to be this sexy between ariyon bakare and his french voice actor that’s just not allowed

radio crowley’s voice vs french ligur’s voice, who has the sexiest voice : FIGHT

(jk french agnes nutter’s voice is by far the sexiest)

gender neutral doesn’t ‘quite’ exist in french but pollution has been assigned a female voice actress and masculine pronouns (i’m saying it doesn’t quite exist because officially we have no gender neutral, but it’s a serious wip among lgbt+ circles to the point where it’s started being used in a few medias)

hastur « en attendant qu’un plombier vienne » / « while waiting for a plumber to come » does hell have a special plumber unit or do demons have to call on human plumbers for their pipes damages ? Dang hastur having to call a human plumber for hell’s plumbery is another damn good writing prompt for a crack fic

Michael is called Michel in the subtitles but Michael in the audio *shrug emoji*

EP 5 

to get a wiggle on has become « il faut qu’on se remue les fesses », literally « we need to shake our butts » like, yes, se remuer les fesses is a common expression to say « we need to act in order to get things done » but it really casts the image of people shaking their booty to some music and obviously crowley thinks the same Weirdly enough I have almost nothing to say for that episode. Sorry. But we’ve discovered most voice actors and actresses so far and no bit of dialogue really struck me as worth discussing or pointing fingers to mock it.

EP 6 

« on va BROUTER quelques derrières » - « we’re gonna lick some butts » OK THIS IS UNQUESTIONNABLY FAR SUPERIOR IN FRENCH THAN IN ENGLISH you thought LICKING butts was good ??? you really thought that ???? AZIRAPHALE HERE SUGGESTS TO GRAZE BUTTS. TO NIBBLE THEM. TO EAT THEM. TO. MUNCH. ON. THOSE. BUTTS!!!! not just licking, guys. This is as serious step beyond licking. (oh yeah he should have said « botter » instead of brouter btw, which is really just kicking, fyi)

« moi je crois en la paix, pétasse ! » wow, language, pepper (fyi i think « pétasse » is far far worse than « bitch » even if it means roughly the same, pétasse is almost never used while bitch is rather common, so it’s a swear word +++)

Dagon sounds like she’s got a nasty cold. #GetDagonIbuprofen2K20

I can confirm that Crowley offers Aziraphale to not just stay at his place, but to move in with him. « tu peux t’installer chez moi si tu veux ». omg they were roommates.

Bad translation strikes again : i don’t know why, but the french dub doesn’t have the « tickety-boo » / « ça gaze » being referenced as Rampa / Aziraphale is being knocked down, which is… a real mistep. It was narratively significant and I’m quite mad the translators missed it.

The Jesse James explanation from Newt has become very nonsensical, instead of the neat and to the point pun « wherever I go I hold up trafic » we’re getting a circonvoluted « because it’s a crime to mechanic’s diligence ». I’m not judging that one too hard, I have no idea how to make it better, and that’s probably how it was translated in the book as well thirty years ago, but it definitely doesn’t have the same impact. On the other hand, it definitely IS a very bad joke that doesn’t even deserve a chuckle, so Anathema’s embarassement really matches the audience’s (aka mine).

OVERALL :

I wasn’t convinced by Crowley… I mean, Rampa’s voice at first, but as the nerdiness showed up it really grew on me. I still think that french dubs have often problems with some voice inflexions every here and there, and for instance in Rampa’s case it was when he was annoyed or frustrated ( at the Globe when complaining about horses and Shakespeare’s plays that aren’t comedies, and also when discussing Azirphale’s magic tricks, it’s like… there is a step between having the right amount of grumpy complaining and overdoing it that is overlooked. It’s overacted, it should have been a bit quieter imo. I don’t mean to criticize voice actors too hard either but as an audience watching french dubs this is a very recurring problem and it always feels off to me. It’s actually one of the main reasons I avoid french dubs whenever possible.)

I have a hard time judging Aziraphale’s voice dub because it clashes so much with both the idea I had formed with it when I read the book and Sheen’s delivery that I just… kinda filtered it. It was too high pitched for me, and too anxious (though for this last point I must admit it could be funny at times, but I’m not fond of this character portrayal). The rest of the cast was rather good, nothing to complain about. There wasn’t anything stellar either, but everything that needed to be conveyed was and it was professionnal. It was also very homogeneous, no voice really struck me as being way too bad or way too good compared to the others, so it was really consistant.

So I don’t have much to complain about overall despite a few wonky translations here and there, BUT there is one thing I felt very robbed of : Crowley calling Aziraphale « mon ange » happens only once, when giving a lift to Anathema, and I’m almost certain they translated it that way because otherwise the joke about Anathama mistaking them for a couple wouldn’t work. So, they were forced to make it that way. The rest of the time Crowley calls Aziraphale « l’angelot », and despite being literally translated by « little angel », it feels sarcastic more than anything else ( the « L’ » in front of « angelot » is part of the reason why, it creates some distance, the other reason being that this word in itself has a very corny vibe and people being affectionnate to each other wouldn’t use it as a term of endearment). So, that’s a shame.

I like the English dub much much MUCH better than the French, but the french wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. The voice actors and actresses were quite good, the dialogues mostly faithful and endearing despite a few really missed steps. It really had its moments. Props to brouter des derrières, that one was fantastic.

[lastbluetardis]

And Babies Make Five and Six (6/16)

Summary: Sometimes the things we want the most stay just out of reach. But after an extra helping of heartache as they try for a third baby, James and Rose are blessed with double the joy.

Trigger warning for infertility for select chapters–this is one of those chapters.

I’m sorry for the delay (again!) But this chapter is the start of the climax of the story and I wanted to be sure I was telling the best possible story. This is also looking like it will be longer than the originally-planned eleven chapters, so I’ve adjusted the chapter count with my new prediction.

Ten x Rose AU

This chapter: Mature, 9000 words

Betaed by the marvelous @chocolatequeennk, and also written for @doctorroseprompts because it is a Doctor x Rose fic.

AO3 | TSP | FF | Perfectly Matched Series

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | Ch11 |  Ch12 | Ch13 | Ch14 | Ch15 | Ch16

The rest of their holiday passed too quickly for either of their liking, and they tried to squeeze as many activities into their days as they could.

On their second to last evening, they sat entwined on a lounge chair and star-gazed as they sipped chilled champagne and ate the chocolate-covered fruit they’d ordered. They were grateful for the cover of darkness and the privacy of having the outermost waterfront suite as they basked in the afterglow of their latest lovemaking session.

“I think we’re putting our younger selves to shame,” James laughed as he nuzzled his face into her sweat-dampened hair.

“It must be all the shellfish, acting as an aphrodisiac,” she mumbled, heaving out a sated sigh.

James snorted. “As if I’d need an aphrodisiac. I’m always horny around you.”

Rose giggled, knowing the truth in that statement. James’s sex drive had always been robust, equal only to her own, and not even the past twelve and a half years of intimacy had cooled his ardor. It was an intoxicating feeling, knowing that her husband wanted her just as much now as he did when they first met.

“Same for me,” she said. “You’re too sexy for your own good.” His chest rumbled beneath her ear as he giggled, and she smiled at the sound. She then arched her back, stretching her slightly sore muscles. “God, this trip has been amazing. I can’t believe we have to go home soon.”

“I know,” he said, reached over to top off their champagne glasses. “While I miss our daughters terribly, I love being alone here with you.”

Rose hummed in agreement and tilted her head back to lean against James’s chest. Her torso rose and fell softly with his as he breathed, and she could feel the faint pounding of his heartbeat against the back of her head.

He wrapped an arm around her middle and hugged her tight. Rose watched him point out various patterns in the stars with his free hand. His voice was low and intimate as he told her all about the Polynesian history he’d read about, and how the people of old used to navigate the vast expanses of the ocean using the stars as their only guide.

She smiled as he spoke, and let the rhythm of his voice and the Bora Bora nightlife lull her further into a trance-like state of relaxation. She was barely aware of James helping her to bed some time later, and once cushioned in the plush mattress, she immediately fell into a deep sleep.

When they woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of rain pattering against the roof of their suite.

“At least the weather had the decency to wait until our last day to start raining,” James said brightly.

“Mhm,” Rose agreed, standing at the window to the deck and watching the churning of the sea beneath the gray clouds. “Besides, a little rain won’t disrupt our souvenir shopping.”

After breakfast and a shared shower, James and Rose huddled under the same umbrella as they moved from shop to shop, admiring the authentic Bora Bora souvenirs. Rose ran her fingertips across the tribal wood carvings, loving texture of the patterns etched into the smooth wood.

She picked up a tri-fold picture frame and ran her thumb across the smooth wood. James loved taking new photographs of their daughters into his office, and Rose thought this would be perfect for him to set on the corner of his desk. She hid it at the bottom of her basket then moved to the opposite end of the shop when a matching wood carved necklace and bracelet set caught her eye. She called James over. “Ainsley is always getting into my jewelry box to play dress up. I think she’d love these.”

“Oh absolutely,” he said, and they purchased it along with a set of wooden bowls that came with gorgeously carved lids for Robert.

For their youngest, they decided on a set of children’s books about the island. One set was a series that detailed the wildlife on Bora Bora and the surrounding islands, both land and sea creatures, and one was specific to the plant life. Another book was a story about a little girl growing up on the island. The bright colors and unique plants and animals would capture their toddler’s attention, they knew, and it would be a nice book to look at when they wanted to remember the life on the island.

When they bought themselves a few bottles of the oils and lotions used during the massage they’d gotten on their anniversary, they also added an extra few to their basket after Rose noted that her mum would probably enjoy the beauty products, too.

Over lunch, James surprised Rose with a gift-wrapped package containing a matching necklace and earring set made of the island’s famous black pearls.

“Oh, James!” she gasped, rubbing her thumb across the smooth, iridescent pearls. “These are beautiful!”

He beamed. “I thought you’d love them. They’ll look gorgeous against your skin. Even when you go back to being pasty pale.”

Rose stuck her tongue out at him and said, “Oi, you’re paler than me.” She then ducked down and rifled through the bags at her feet. “I got something for you, too. Not as elegant as the pearls, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, nonsense, this is perfect!” he crowed, his voice pitching high in his excitement. He accepted the picture frame from her, and he opened it up. He traced his thumbnail through the grooves of the intricate, swirling patterns in the wood. “Oh, this is going right on my desk at work! Can you help me get a few photos printed when we get home?”

“Of course,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it,” James said, leaning over to press an over-the-top smacking kiss to her lips.

After lunch, they continued their shopping excursion. Rose’s eyes were drawn to a shop filled with colorful fabrics, and James let himself be led into the clothing shop, where he watched his wife move from rack to rack, admiring the hand-dyed clothing and accessories.

“I wonder what these are,” Rose said, gesturing to a rack displaying long, stretchy lengths of fabric. She pulled one off and held it up. “It’s not wide enough to be a sarong,” she muttered to herself. “Too stretchy to be a scarf.”

“It is so you can carry your baby.”

James and Rose turned at the voice and saw a woman—presumably the shop owner—standing behind them and wearing the same article of clothing as Rose was holding up. The woman turned to the side and gestured to the sleeping baby that was swaddled close to her chest. The woman then walked to a different rack to hang up the scarves she’d been carrying.

“Oh, that is beautiful,” Rose gasped as she held the baby wrap to her body and haphazardly fastened it across her torso.

James hummed his agreement. The vibrant blues and greens looked lovely against her skin, and his brain couldn’t help but show him this same image but with a dark-haired baby nestled in the front pouch.

Rose, it seemed, had the same idea.

“This would be so handy, eh?” she asked. “It’s a bit looser in the front than the baby wrap we have, which smooshes my boobs when I wear it. Having smooshed boobs when breastfeeding is not the most pleasant sensation I’ve ever felt.”

“I’ll bet,” James said with a grimace. “If you want it, go ahead. Prep for baby three.”

Rose returned his giddy grin, and she added the baby wrap to her basket.

With babies on the brain, they were both drawn to the selection of baby accessories in the shop, from blankets to swaddles to caps. As they browsed the selection, they began to muse aloud about their next child.

“You better give your little swimmers a pep talk if you want a boy,” Rose teased, nudging her elbow into his ribs. “All I can contribute is the X chromosome.”

James rolled his eyes. “I don’t care if we get a boy or a girl, as long as they’re healthy.”

They continued swapping predictions back and forth, speculating what their baby would look like. They wondered about the kind of personality their child would have, and if they would be calm and sweet like Ainsley, or energetic and daring like Sianin.

“Probably something new and unique that we’ll have to learn to adapt to,” James said.

“D’you think Sianin will like having a little brother or sister?” Rose asked curiously. “Ainsley adores being a big sister. But Sianin… I can’t quite see how she’ll react.”

“I think she’ll take her cue from Ainsley, like always,” James said. “I think she’ll see how excited Ainsley is, and so she’ll be excited too.”

“I hope so,” Rose said, bringing her basket to the register to pay.

When they were finished with their shopping, they headed back to their room to prepare for their last dinner on the island. While the rain had mostly stopped by the evening, the clouds remained, and James and Rose dined atop the lagoon and watched the wind stir up waves.

A package was waiting for them when they got back to their room after dinner.

“Oh, good, I was getting worried it wouldn’t be done in time,” Rose said happily, skipping up to it.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Why don’t you open it and find out?”

Rose bit her lip as James fumbled to tear open the thick packing paper, and she beamed when she heard his gasp.

“Oh, Rose!”

He held up a painting of the two of them on the beach. His arms were wrapped around her waist and she was leaning back against him, and both of them were wearing big smiles. The colors were vibrant and tropical, from the greens and blues of the sea behind them to the pinks and oranges of the sunset sky.

“How did you do this?” he asked, his mouth open in surprise.

“I saw a local artist on the beach that first day we were here,” Rose said. “She takes family photographs and paints them onto a beach setting. I snuck off to give her the photo when you were napping on the beach.”

“You’re incredible, d’you know that?” he murmured, gently setting the painting down on the bed to turn to take her up into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled into his chest. “I love it so much. Thank you. It’s a perfect memento to bring home with us.”

“I thought so too,” she said. “This trip has been so perfect.”

He hummed into her shoulder, then pressed a kiss to her skin.

They turned in early that night, wanting to be well-rested when they caught their morning flight off the island.

They came home from their anniversary refreshed, relaxed, and much tanner than when they’d left. They arrived at their house late at night, after the girls were already asleep.

“Welcome home!” Robert greeted when they stepped through the front door. “Bora Bora was good for you. You both look amazing.”

“Thanks, Dad!” Rose skipped up to him and caught him in a tight hug. “How were the girls?”

“Wonderful, as always,” he answered.

Rose turned and walked down the hall, unable to resist peeking in on her daughters. She poked her head into Sianin’s room first. Her heart melted when she saw how Sianin was lying diagonally across her mattress with her blankets shoved all the way to the foot of the bed. Barely daring to breathe, Rose crept into her room and pulled the covers up and draped them over Sianin’s little body.

Sianin snorted in her sleep, then rolled over onto her side and hugged her blankets to her chest as she popped a thumb into her mouth.

“I love you,” Rose murmured, aching to pull Sianin into her arms.

She resisted, and then turned around to leave the room where she saw James leaning against the door frame. She stepped by him and saw him linger at the door to watch Sianin sleep while she entered Ainsley’s room.

Her six-year-old was sound asleep on her stomach, with her blankets pulled tight around her shoulders. Her dark hair was in her face, and Rose crouched down to smooth it back. Ainsley stayed dead asleep, and Rose smiled at her child.

She pressed a soft kiss to Ainsley’s temple and whispered, “I love you,” before she left the room to let James have his turn.

She walked back to the living room, where Robert was readying his things.

“Dad, you don’t need to leave!” Rose protested. “It’s the middle of the night. Stay!”

“I don’t want to intrude…”

“Dad, don’t be stupid.” Rose turned and saw James enter the room. When he reached her side, Rose smacked his chest lightly and hissed, “Rude!”

James ignored her and said, “It’s a forty-minute drive back to your flat. Stay here the night.”

Robert agreed, then added, “I’m glad I’m moving closer. That will make this easier.”

James hummed and nodded, before he and Rose bade Robert goodnight.

They worked around each other as they went through their nighttime routine. Finishing first, Rose collapsed into their bed and listened to her husband moving around the ensuite.

“It’s good to be home,” she murmured, nuzzling into her pillow that smelled a little stale after two weeks of disuse.

“Yeah it is,” he answered.

He flicked their light off and scooted into bed beside her. They moved together until she was spooned back against him. She hugged his arm to her chest and laced their fingers together beneath her chin.

“First day we haven’t shagged in seven days straight,” she mumbled to his knuckles.

“Oh dear. We’re losing our touch,” he said dryly. Rose giggled, and he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Though I suppose it’ll be all right to give our bodies a bit of a break. Too much of a good thing and all?”

“Pfft. I can’t ever get enough of you,” Rose mumbled through a yawn. Her eyelids drooped, and James squeezed her tight before he wormed his arm out of her grasp.

“And I, you.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her hair and whispered, “Get some sleep. Nighty night.”

Rose slept like the dead, and if she had any dreams, she couldn’t remember them. She didn’t feel at all ready to wake up when two small bodies jumped into their bed when it was still dark outside.

“Mummy! Daddy! You’re home!”

Rose smiled sleepily at her two daughters, and she grabbed them both up into her arms. She held them tight to her chest and buried her nose into first Ainsley’s hair, then Sianin’s, and she delighted in breathing them in.

“I missed you so much,” Rose said, peppering them with kisses.

“Daddy’s turn,” James said, cuddling up against Rose’s side to take their girls into his arms.

After the initial hugs were given out, James and Rose lay back down in their bed with their kids in between them. They listened to Ainsley and Sianin tell them all about their week with Grandad, and then they answered their questions about Bora Bora. Rose grabbed her phone and showed their daughters the many photos they took while on their holiday, at least until Sianin grew bored and started asking for breakfast.

Getting back into the groove of working was challenging after two weeks off. The first morning Rose’s alarm went off, she groaned and snoozed her phone before she rolled over and buried her face in James’s back.

“I hate working,” she mumbled.

“No you don’t,” he said, turning to face her. “You love your job.”

“I’d love it more if I didn’t have to be in at seven,” she said.

“I know,” James said. “But we both agreed that those hours would work best in coordinating school drop off and pick up.”

“Stop being logical,” Rose said, poking his belly.

He breathed out a laugh and draped an arm around her waist. “As you wish.”

They remained in their embrace until Rose’s alarm went off again.

James had it easy; the university was still on holiday, so he wouldn’t have to worry about needing to be a functioning human early in the morning for another couple of weeks.

The weekend before his term was about to start, Rose woke him with lazy kisses to his chest and neck, and finally his lips. He hummed into the kiss and threaded his fingers through her sleep-tangled hair as he held her closer.

“Good morning to you, too,” he murmured against her lips.

“My period is late,” she whispered.

James blinked up at her, not sure if he’d misheard her or his groggy brain had misunderstood. But no, she had a giddy grin on her face and her eyes were alight with excitement.

“Yeah?” he asked hopefully.

She nodded. “Was supposed to get it Monday. Still don’t have it.”

“Do you have a pregnancy test?” he asked, sitting upright as anticipation pulsed through his veins.

“Bought a few after work yesterday,” she said.

“Well what are you waiting for? Go wee!”

Rose laughed at him and swatted his chest.

“Charming,” she drawled, but she shifted away from him to crawl out of bed.

James sat up too and waited anxiously as Rose disappeared into the loo. A few moments later, he heard the faucet running as she washed her hands, and he joined her in the ensuite.

The pregnancy test was sitting face-down on the vanity. He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle. He buried his face into her neck and breathed her in as he gently rocked them from side to side.

“Love you.”

Rose brought her hands up to cover his, and she leaned back into his chest. “I love you, too.”

After a few minutes, James said, “Wanna look?”

“Yeah.”

Rose reached over for the test, but kept it upside down.

She was nervous yet excited all at once. They’d shagged like bunnies—hell, they’d probably put some bunnies to shame—during their anniversary. And she’d been fertile for most of their trip. She didn’t know if that was good luck or providence, but whatever it was, she felt it deep in her bones that things were finally looking up for them.

So when she flipped the test stick over and heard James’s disappointed little “oh”, she didn’t understand. She saw the single line—not pregnant—and still didn’t understand. They’d been trying so hard. They’d had sex every day of her ovulation cycle. Multiple times a day, sometimes. She should be pregnant.

The warmth and hope in her bloodstream evaporated, leaving her feeling cold and aching.

“We’ll try again,” James said quietly, pecking a kiss to the back of her head before he unwrapped his arms from around her waist and moved to throw away the negative test.

She wanted to cry. His disappointment grated against her for some reason. Maybe because she, too, was disappointed and all she wanted was for him to be the optimistic one. Or maybe because it hurt to hear the hurt in his voice. She was so sick of failing him. She wanted to go back to her doctor and pester her to make sure that she was positive that there wasn’t anything wrong with her. Because there had to be. There had to be some reason why she wasn’t getting pregnant.

“We’ll try again next month,” he said again, and she flinched away from his hand on her back.

Tears burned behind her eyes. She didn’t want to wait another month to try again. She hated that they had to wait. Why couldn’t her body be fertile more often? Like James’s. It wasn’t bloody fair.

“You okay?”

No, she wanted to shout. I thought all that shagging we’d done on our holiday would’ve done the trick. I thought we’d really done it this time and finally made a baby. But it was all for nothing.

As soon as she thought the words, they were gone, and in their place was a foul taste in her mouth. What sort of terrible person was she that she’d just boiled down her wonderful anniversary holiday with James to only its potential of conception? She’d had so much fun with him in Bora Bora.

She forced herself to remember all of the amazing things they’d done together. Snorkeling, hiking, swimming. And a whole lot of shagging. Which turned out to have been fruitless.

Stop that, she chastised. We made love for more reasons than just to make a baby. We made love because we are so in love with each other, and because it’s fun and feels really great.

“Rose?”

Oh, right. James was still waiting on an answer.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she whispered, forcing down all of the ugly thoughts that had cropped up.

His slight frown told her he didn’t believe her.

“Are you sure?” he asked quietly. She clenched her jaw as she tried to make herself feel as okay as she claimed. “Because I’m not. I’m disappointed and upset. Remember, you don’t have to pretend with me, Rose.”

Her throat ached as her vision blurred. His face softened when he saw her tears, and he murmured, “Oh, Rose. C’mere.”

Her face crumpled and she choked on a sob as James pulled her into his arms. She clung to him as her tears fell, and she wept with frustration and feelings of inadequacy.

It was her fault that they weren’t getting pregnant, and it was her fault they had to keep waiting, and it was her fault that they were even in this mess. She never should have taken that pregnancy test eighteen months ago. As she’d told him then, there was virtually no chance she was even pregnant.

But she did take that test, and she’d gotten to thinking about having another baby, and worse, she’d gotten James thinking about it. She’d gotten his hopes up, and every month that came without a pregnancy had them crashing back down again.

She gasped in a breath as she tried to stifle her sobs against his shoulder, but more kept taking their place.

“Shh,” he whispered, squeezing her tighter. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything will be okay. Just breathe, love.”

She tried to breathe, but her lungs felt too tight and she couldn’t do much more than suck in shallow gasps of air. She was just so exhausted. All she wanted was to be pregnant and for this whole ordeal to be over. Was that too much to ask?

Maybe it was. After all, she already had two amazing children with her equally amazing husband.

Her stomach roiled as she thought of Ainsley and Sianin. She was already so, so lucky to have her daughters. Was she being selfish and ungrateful by wanting more? She should feel completely satisfied with the family she had, rather than fixated on what she didn’t have. Why couldn’t she be happy with her two kids? Why did she feel this ache in her chest, this longing for another child, every time she looked at Ainsley and Sianin?

She was about to confess all of the terrible thoughts she was thinking, but then stopped herself. If she hated herself for them, what if James did too? He’d surely be angry when she told him how Ainsley and Sianin weren’t enough.

But they are enough, she protested. They are more than enough! I just… want more.

“Easy does it,” James murmured. “That’s it. Breathe.”

Rose shuddered in a breath, and she squeezed his waist tightly.

“I thought we’d finally done it,” she rasped into his chest. “I really, really did.”

“So did I,” he admitted, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “We’ll just keep trying.”

Rose sniffled and kept her face buried in his collarbone until her tears stopped. James pulled back to look at her, and the sight of his pink, wet eyes nearly set her off again. But she drew in a shuddering breath and managed to blink through her tears.

While keeping one arm wrapped around her waist, James reached up with his other hand to cradle her cheek in his palm. He swiped his thumb under her eye, and Rose rubbed her other eye dry.

“Get a shower, and I’ll have breakfast ready when you’re done,” he said softly.

Rose nodded and turned away from him to take a hot shower. She hated the ache in her chest. She hated that this one thing could bring her such distress. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

But it is, she argued. It’s a baby. A new little person I’ve made with James that’s half him and half me that we will love forever. It’s a new sibling for Ainsley and Sianin, a built-in friend for life.

But Ainsley and Sianin are already the best of friends, Rose continued, trying to soothe herself and her sadness. Yes, it would be nice for them to have another brother or sister, but they’re fine by themselves. Just like James and I are fine with having two kids.

She continued the back and forth until the water began to go cool. Cursing, she hastily finished her shower and dressed in soft, comfy trousers and one of James’s jumpers. Being surrounded in his scent worked wonders to calm her, and she felt as composed as she was going to get as she joined her family for breakfast.

Both girls were awake and James had them in his lap where he was sitting on the couch as cartoons played on the television. A plate of pancakes sat on the end table, and Rose watched him roll one up like a burrito and stuff half of it into his mouth.

He caught sight of her and beamed.

“‘Ose!” he said though his chipmunk cheeks. “Ma’e pa’cakes!”

Rose couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled through her chest and doubled her over with laughter. After the morning she’d had, she’d desperately been in need of a good laugh.

“Oh, I love you,” she said, stepping up to him.

Once he finished chewing and swallowing, she pressed a light kiss to his lips, before she ducked down and pressed kisses to her daughters’ heads. She lingered with her lips on their foreheads, letting their presence comfort her.

When she joined them on the couch after getting herself a cup of tea and a plate of pancakes and eggs, Sianin wriggled off of James’s lap and into hers to scavenge for more food.

“Daddy already gave you your breakfast,” Rose said as her toddler knelt on her thighs and looked down at Rose’s plate.

“Want more,” Sianin said. “Please Mummy?”

“Do you want a pancake or eggies?” Rose asked, gesturing with her fork.

“Both.”

Rose skewered a small bite of food for her daughter and let Sianin grab the base of the fork below her fingers so she could feed herself.

“Want more,” Sianin said, moving the fork as though to load it up with more food.

“Mummy’s turn,” Rose said.

They continued to share her plate of food until it was empty, then James stood up and took everyone’s plate into the kitchen before he walked down the hall to get a shower.

In a rare fit of stillness, Sianin stayed in Rose’s lap, facing her. The toddler flashed her a sudden grin then buried her face in Rose’s chest and said, “I love you, Mummy. Mummy, I looooove youuuuu.”

The backs of Rose’s eyes stung, and she hugged her daughter tightly.

“I love you, too, baby,” she whispered, closing her eyes and nuzzling her nose into Sianin’s soft hair. “So much.”

Not wanting to be left out, Ainsley cuddled close to Rose’s side and said, “I love you, too, Mummy.”

Rose smiled against Sianin’s head, and she opened her arm for her other daughter. Ainsley rested her head atop Rose’s breast and wrapped her arms around Rose’s waist.

“And I love you, too, Ainsley. So much.”

Sitting there with her children in her arms, Rose felt contentment wash over her, warming her from the inside out and dispelling the coldness she’d felt since seeing the negative pregnancy test.

Yes, what she had was more than enough. Her family was perfect just the way it was.

But as the weeks dragged along, that mantra was harder to maintain, especially when there was seemingly an explosion of babies around them.

“The Johnsons across the street are pregnant,” Rose grumbled, having run into the neighbor on her morning jog. It had been difficult to smile and congratulate the older woman on her pregnancy because if a woman seven years her senior could get pregnant, why couldn’t she?

“Yeah, I spoke to Dave yesterday,” James said. “That’s wonderful. A bit of a surprise, from what I gathered. But a happy surprise nonetheless.”

Rose had to bite her tongue against the scathing comment about the unfairness of it all. Getting angry with James wouldn’t help anything.

“So, Ainsley’s got that sleepover this weekend,” he said, coming up behind her in a backwards hug. “And it’s been awhile since Jackie babysat. What do you say to you and me having a sleepover of our own?”

Rose sighed. It had been almost a month since they got home from Bora Bora, and in that time, she and James rarely found themselves alone. They were due for a private weekend together, but she wasn’t really in the mood for a romantic night out.

Before she could try and convince James otherwise, she remembered that she couldn’t go away with him that weekend. She felt guilty when the tension left her body at that realization.

“Sorry, love, but I’ve got that photo session all day on Saturday,” she said apologetically.

“Crap, that’s right.” He sighed. “Oh well. Rain check.”

She squeezed his hand before she stepped away from his embrace and headed down the hall to shower.

Her photoshoot that weekend did nothing to help her worsening mood. She was booked for a newborn debut shoot. Again.

Why do I always get these bloody shoots? Rose grumbled to herself as she set up her equipment in the studio. Since returning from her holiday, she’d had at least ten newborn shoots. Ten days where she saw new mums and dads come in with their new baby. In order to get the angles she wanted, Rose usually had to pick up the baby and reposition them, and every time she felt the warm weight of a baby in her arms, an ache lodged in her chest. It was getting to be so hard to continuously photograph new babies and new parents and new big siblings without her imagination getting the best of her.

Her mind would supply her with pictures of how her family would look in these photoshoots. It showed her James with a proud grin on his face as he held their three children in his lap. It showed her Ainsley, who would be so eager to hold her new baby sibling. It showed her Sianin, who, under James’s guidance with holding a newborn, would be smiling down into the baby’s face. It showed her herself, still round with lingering baby weight, holding an infant to her chest as the rest of her family stood beside her.

It hurt every time she had to come back to reality and leave that fantasy in her memories.

That particular Saturday was the worst day she’d had yet. It was a family shoot, not just a newborn shoot. It was a husband and wife, with their two eldest daughters and newborn baby boy. The girls were six and three, and it was impossible for Rose to not see the parallel.

She tried to rush through the shoot under the guise of wanting to get the photographs done before the baby or either of the children lost their patience. The parents agreed, and together they all worked quickly to get the shots the family wanted.

It was the longest hour of Rose’s life. By the time she shook hands with the mother and father and made an appointment for them to come in and pick out the photos they wanted, she was near tears. Those tears fell as soon as she was alone, and she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as she tried and failed to stop them.

She hated this. She hated feeling like this. She wished the ache of want in her chest would go away, and more than anything, she wished she knew what she was doing wrong to keep them from getting pregnant.

According to everyone else, there wasn’t anything wrong. She was healthy. Her uterus was healthy. Her eggs were healthy. But if she were healthy, surely something should’ve happened by now. Her body had proven before that it could get pregnant with no trouble, so why wasn’t it getting pregnant now?

She tried to ignore those thoughts as she packed away her equipment and returned to her office to download the photographs. They were beautiful photos, but Rose was having trouble looking at them with the right eye to touch them up. After almost two hours of editing, deleting her edits, and re-editing, Rose gave up with a frustrated groan. She shut down her computer, angry with herself that she couldn’t focus on her work. How unprofessional was she that she was letting her personal life impact her work?

With a sigh, she told herself she would take a breather and relax for the rest of the weekend before coming back into the studio on Monday to look at the photos with fresh eyes.

But it was no good. Monday came, and Rose found herself dreading the project. She pushed all of her other work to the front and focused on the digital art renderings she’d been commissioned to do.

By the end of the week, Rose had reached the end of her rope when she’d been given assignments for two more baby photoshoots.

“I can’t do these, Lindsey,” Rose said as she stormed into her boss’s office with the assignment slips. “I can’t. Why am I the only bloody person around here that photographs babies? Eh? Why can’t I ever get the weekend assignments to go all across the country and photograph weddings? Why can’t I ever get the assignments to take photos of local scenery? But no, I get the bloody babies!”

Rose’s eyes were stinging with frustration and embarrassment, and her boss’s eyes were wide.

“Shut the door, Rose,” she said quietly, and Rose did so, but stayed standing until Lindsey gestured for her to sit down. “Rose, is everything okay?”

“Fine,” she said stiffly, feeling mortified about how she’d just snapped at her boss.

“It’s just… you love doing the baby shoots,” Lindsey said gently.

“Well, maybe I’m just bored with them,” she mumbled.

“That’s fair enough. But are you sure there isn’t anything else that’s wrong?”

Rose sighed and finally admitted, “James and I have been trying for another baby for almost two years, with no luck. It’s becoming hard to constantly be working with new babies, is all.”

Her boss’s face pinched into an expression of sympathy, and Rose clenched her jaw. She didn’t want pity; she had enough self-pity. She just wanted more diversity with her assignments until she was able to work through her anger and frustration over her current situation.

“Anyway,” Rose continued before Lindsey could say anything. “It’s given me a block with editing the photos, and it’s not fair to the clients to have someone who isn’t interested in their photos doing the edits. So if I could not get any more baby shoots for a while, that’d be great.”

She set the assignment slips on her boss’s desk and turned around to stalk back to her own office.

James, meanwhile, wasn’t faring much better, especially after one of his work friends announced that he and his wife were pregnant with their second child.

“We’d been trying for ages,” Mark told James when they went out for celebratory drinks. “Eight or nine months, I reckon.”

James regretted the shot of tequila he’d just taken as his stomach rolled with jealousy and annoyance. Nine months was no time at all. He and Rose had been trying for twice as long as that. Before he could say something he would later regret, James clapped Mark on the shoulder and ordered a new round of drinks.

The middle of February rolled around, and the weekend before Valentine’s Day found James helping his dad move into his new flat.

“Just me today,” James called out, walking through the open front door. “Sianin caught a bug at the daycare. Rose is staying home with her.”

“Aww, is she okay?” Robert asked, grimacing in sympathy.

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. It’s a slight fever and a cough. All she’s wanted to do is sleep though, which is quite telling to how poorly she’s feeling. And evidently Rose’s arms are the only place that sleeping can happen,” James answered, rubbing his fingers into his tired eyes. Sianin had slept with them last night, and her continuous coughing and wriggling around had kept them both up for most of the night.

“I remember those days,” Robert said. “A mum or dad cuddle is often the best medicine for a sick baby.”

James nodded and accepted the mug of coffee his dad offered.

“So how’s retired life?” he asked, glancing around at the boxes that were labeled ‘uni office’. “Is it weird not going into the university every day?”

“Yeah, a bit. It’s like I don’t quite know what to do with myself.”

“Well, Rose and I are just a mile away,” James said. “Stop by and play with your grandkids whenever you want.”

“It’ll be nice to see the girls more often,” Robert said, gesturing for James to sit at the table. “And you. What’s been happening with you? And Rose? I feel like I haven’t really talked to you in a while. ”

“Yeah, suppose not.” James paused for a moment. He took a sip of coffee then admitted, “Rose and I… we’ve been trying for another baby.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Robert said with a smile.

James shook his head as a lump swelled up in his throat.

“We’ve, ehm, we’ve been trying for a while. In June it’ll be two years,” he whispered, rubbing at his stinging nose. “And nothing. Rose took a test last month because she suspected she might be pregnant. Came back negative. I thought for sure, since she was ovulating during our anniversary… Rose was so disappointed, Dad. She was so upset, and I didn’t know how to make her feel better.”

James’s chest ached as he remembered how tightly Rose had clung to him and how her entire body shook with sobs. He hadn’t seen her that upset since her struggle with postpartum depression after Sianin’s birth.

“Oh, mate.” Robert touched his hand to James’s forearm and gave it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”

“We got tested right before Christmas, to make sure nothing’s wrong, and everything came back clear, but I’m not sure I believe that,” James said. “There’s got to be a reason this isn’t happening for us.”

“These things sometimes happen, James,” Robert said gently.

“But we already have two kids!” he exclaimed. “I’d be more believing of that if we were trying for our first and having no luck. But we got pregnant with Ainsley and Sianin straightaway. We’ve been trying for a baby for longer than we’d tried for the two of them combined. Hell, we could’ve gone through two pregnancies by now!”

“I know,” Robert said.

“I just want a baby,” James whimpered, sniffing. “I want one so badly, Dad. I didn’t realize how much. Because at the beginning, I told myself that we still had time. That Sianin was still practically a baby, so it would be okay if it took a few months, or a year. But now… My baby is gonna be three in a month.”

Robert nodding in understanding.

“Does this make me a bad dad?” James asked. “Wanting another child when I’ve already got two wonderful daughters?”

“Of course not. Why on earth would that make you a bad father?”

“Because I feel like I’m saying Ainsley and Sianin aren’t good enough. Like I’m saying I’m not satisfied with my girls.”

“James, that’s not true,” Robert said. “It doesn’t make you a bad father to want more children. It’s completely natural, a biological urge, to want to have children. Your biological clock is ticking, and so is Rose’s, and that’s one hell of a thing to try to overcome. Believe me. It was hard at times for me to accept that you would be my only child. But that didn’t mean I was dissatisfied with you, or that I loved you any less.”

“How did you cope?” James asked. “This feels awful. How can I make it go away? How can I make myself be content with the life I have?”

Robert pursed his lips and sighed. “Time, unfortunately, is what made it go away for me. When you were born, the feeling muted, because I was so happy to have a healthy child. But then as you grew from a baby into a child—actually, you were around the age Sianin is—those feelings came back. When your mum and I lost the fourth baby, we called it quits for real. And it was hard, James. I won’t lie. It was really hard. But that doesn’t ever mean I was unhappy with my life and my family. You and your mum brought so much joy to my life, and I was grateful for every moment I got to share with you both, but there were moments when I felt bitter about my lot in life.”

James sighed, not feeling at all better.

“It will get better, mate,” Robert said softly, covering James’s hand. “I promise you. That ache deep inside? That frantic tug? It’ll go away. And I know you don’t hold the same beliefs that I do, but I’ll pray for you and Rose, that this hurt you’re feeling will heal.”

A tear finally streaked down James’s cheek, and he pulled his hands away to rub them over his face. He sniffed hard and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until the urge to cry went away.

“We should get working,” James said, his voice raspier than he would have liked. He pushed up from the table and ignored his father’s sigh and instead began unloading the half-empty box of kitchen supplies.

They worked long into the evening, and when James returned home, he was thoroughly exhausted and his muscles ached.

“How’s my baby?” James cooed when he crouched down next to the sofa where Sianin was laying with her head in Rose’s lap.

“Hi Daddy,” she whispered. “Don’t feel good.”

“I know, darling.” He brushed his lips across her forehead and frowned at how hot she felt. He looked up at Rose and asked, “What’s her temperature?”

“Thirty-eight point five,” Rose said with a sigh. “It’s been steadily climbing all day. If it doesn’t break tonight, I’m going to take her to the doctor.”

James nodded, and he saw how wrung out Rose looked.

“Are you feeling all right?” James asked, pressing the backs of his fingers to her forehead.

“Just tired,” she said with a weary smile.

James pressed a kiss to her forehead, then went to their bedroom to get a shower to wash off the sweat from helping his dad unload boxes and move furniture around all day.

When he returned to the living room, Ainsley was home from her day at the neighbor’s.

“Hi Daddy!” she said, skipping up to him.

He reached down and swung her up into his arms.

“Hiya darling,” he said. “Did you have fun with the Johnsons?”

Ainsley launched into telling him all about her day as he walked with her on his hip to the kitchen to make himself something to eat.

“Are you hungry, Ainsley, or did the Johnsons give you supper?” he asked.

“They made supper,” she answered. “We had hamburgers.”

James kept Ainsley in his arms as he walked with his warmed-up chicken soup to the living room. His heart clenched at how utterly miserable Sianin looked. Her face was pale except for the splotchy pink spots on her cheeks. Her nose was bright red and chapped from the pile of used tissues sitting beside Rose. Every few minutes she coughed a dry, hacking cough that made his chest hurt in sympathy.

Their toddler’s condition didn’t improve overnight, but rather got worse, and when they took her to the pediatrician the next morning, they received the diagnosis of the flu. Upon hearing that, they asked Robert if he could keep Ainsley for a few days to hopefully keep her from getting infected.

They stopped at the store for toddler flu medicine and ingredients to make more soup for her, and they settled in to care for their sick child.

“I know you don’t feel well, sweetheart,” James whispered as Sianin cried in misery in his arms. Her fever was climbing again, but it was still an hour’s wait until James felt comfortable with giving her another dose of medicine. “I know. I’m so sorry. Daddy’s so sorry. Daddy wishes he could take it all away.”

James took a few days off of work to help Rose look after their child. When the worst of it passed, he returned to work and Rose continued to work from home. She completely understood that Sianin couldn’t go to daycare while ailing from the flu, but it was quite inconvenient to have to try to get her work done while trying to soothe a sick baby.

Sianin’s fever lasted for a week, impeding upon their Valentine’s Day dinner plans.

“One of these years we’ll be able to celebrate a Valentine’s Day on the fourteenth,” James teased as he brought a long stemmed rose home for his wife.

Rose snorted and accepted the rose with a soft kiss to his lips. After the girls went to bed for the night, James surprised Rose with a bubble bath and scented candles in their bathroom.

“Oh, you’re amazing,” she moaned, sinking deep into the hot water.

“I know,” he said smugly, climbing in behind her.

“Git.”

He hummed and wrapped his arms around her middle. But when his fingers wandered lower down her belly, she grabbed his wrist.

“Sorry, love, but I am exhausted,” she said.

He immediately returned his hands to her stomach and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “You’ve been home with a flu-ridden toddler all week. Of course you’re exhausted. We can rain check to whenever we get around to going out for dinner.”

She leaned back against him and let her eyes flutter shut as she relaxed in the steaming water. When he heard her let out a soft snore, he decided taking a nap in the bath probably wasn’t the safest idea, and so he gently roused her and helped her to bed.

After another week, Sianin was back to being the happy, energetic child they knew and loved. While it was sometimes tiresome to keep up with her, James and Rose were so happy that their almost three-year-old was feeling better. They were also happy that they could finally get around to their dinner date they’d had to postpone.

They had to admit it was nice to have Robert so close. They no longer had to plan a date night way in advance, nor did they have to drive forty minutes to drop their kids off for a sleepover with Grandad.

They had a nice dinner out at a new restaurant that just opened across town. The place was somewhat busy when they arrived, but James had put his name in so they didn’t have to endure the thirty-minute wait that other patrons had.

The wine was good and the food was excellent. All of the tabletops were adorned with a light lavender tablecloth, and with the flickering candle set in the middle and the dim overhead lights, a gentle, romantic ambience was set for their meal.

James caught Rose humming along to the music playing overhead. When he concentrated, he finally realized that the restaurant was playing instrumental pieces of modern radio songs.

They ended their date by sharing dessert, as always, and left the restaurant arm in arm, feeling warm and full.

“That was really good,” James said as he guided Rose to their car.

“Mhm,” she agreed.

James opened the door for her and when she was settled in her seat, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. Heat pooled lazily in his belly as her hands went to his hair to keep him where he was. They were in one of their longer dry spells—minus the ones after Rose had given birth—and James was eager to go home and make love with his wife.

When they got home, Rose excused herself to the loo, telling him she had a surprise for him. He eagerly waited for her in their bedroom, always loving when she told him before having sex that she had a surprise. She looked great in anything—or nothing—but he couldn’t deny that he loved when she went out and bought new lingerie. She knew exactly what he liked best.

As he waited for her to get changed, he pulled off his shoes and socks, then he took everything out of his pockets. He tossed his wallet onto the bedside table, then fumbled with his phone for a minute to silence it. Nothing broke the mood quite like a phone alert. But as he went to mute the sound, he saw the notification ‘ovulation in two days’ pop up at the top of the screen. Something in his in belly clenched uncomfortably tight.

“Your phone can’t possibly be sexier than me.”

James jumped and set his mobile face-down on the bedside table. He turned and his mouth went dry when he saw Rose was wearing a dark blue chemise that wasn’t quite sheer enough to give him a good view of her body, but it was skimpy enough that he knew she wasn’t wearing anything else beneath it. The fitted, built-in bra pushed her breasts up and the hem of the chemise tickled her upper thighs, just barely hiding her from his gaze.

“You look amazing,” he whispered, feeling his pulse throbbing behind the zipper of his trousers.

Rose stepped up to him and caught him in a hot and sloppy kiss before she pushed him back onto their bed and crawled on top of him.

They giggled as they continued trying to displace the other from topping and as they attempted to get James out of his trousers, shirt, and pants without sitting up off the bed. They finally got sufficiently naked, with Rose keeping the chemise on but it had been tugged down far enough that her breasts were exposed.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he rasped as she took him inside of her. He settled his hands at her waist, enjoying the slippery feeling of the fabric as he squeezed her hips.

“So are you,” she said, setting a slow rhythm for them.

She leaned down and caught his lips in a lazy kiss as she continued moving on top of him. Her movements felt good, as always, and James was content to let her set the pace. He always loved it when they took their time making love, because it was a long and slow buildup and their orgasms often caught them off guard.

That was what happened this time. James grunted in surprise as he felt the knot of pleasure clench and then release. He hugged her hips close to him as he gasped out her name and spilled himself inside her.

When it ended, he flopped onto his back and breathed slowly, enjoying the gentle pulses of pleasure still rolling through his body. He heaved out a sigh and made a noise of dissatisfaction when he felt Rose lift up off him and settle herself beside him.

His brain finally cleared of the orgasmic haze it was in and he rolled over to face her.

“I believe I left you hanging,” he prompted.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and caught her lips in an unhurried kiss as his other hand wandered between her thighs. It took only a minute before Rose whimpered her release against his mouth and arched her back in pleasure.

While James loved it when he made Rose come first, he couldn’t deny he enjoyed this unobstructed view of his wife in the throes of ecstasy. He loved seeing her brows furrow as she squeezed her eyes shut, and the way she bit into her bottom lip as she crested before her mouth relaxed as she moaned.

James worked her down slowly, pressing soft kisses to her lips, cheek, and jaw. When she let out a sated groan, he slipped his fingers out of her and popped them into his mouth to clean them.

“That was nice,” she murmured, curling up into his side.

He held her close to him and buried his face in her hair.

“Mhm. It was a nice date night, even postponed two weeks,” he whispered. He absently pressed a kiss to the top of her head as his mind wandered. His phone had reminded him of Rose’s ovulation in just two days. They would be making love again for the next few days. Hopefully this month would be the month they succeeded, and he finally made a baby with her.

<-- Ch5 | Ch7 -->