Ægir’s Bride Ch. 07

"Of course, they raced me to the city. Left the baby and the boys with Andreas and took the boat because it would be faster. Like I said, I remember almost nothing." She sighed and forced the hardest part out, "Except his voice through the too bright light. 'You cannot do this, Rachel. You cannot make me love you and then die on me'."

She lost the battle then with her tears and she no longer gave a damn. No longer had the energy or even the will to hold them back. She could almost hear his voice. But almost was not good enough. It never had been.

Her own voice was weak and cracked, "When I woke up. When he told me, that the only way to save my life had been a hysterectomy. I needed him to take me in his arms and tell me again. Needed to know it was not all just some dream that my delirious mind had made up. But that mask was firmly back in place." She shook her head at the flood of memories, "Maybe even worse than before."

"It is easy to see it all now. How he blamed himself. It was his son that I had almost died to give birth to. And it was he who made that final decision, if you call it that. He, who had signed the papers giving the doctors permission anyway." Still she avoided the word, she could not even bring herself to think it one more time, let alone say it again.

"But then? I was too lost. Too lost in my own fucking pain to see any of theirs. Andreas, my first love. We would never have the little girl he promised me to go with the sons. He started drinking." She could not even look at the younger woman then. As she admitted her own failures. She shivered as she felt the cold blast of the past caress her skin.

"And Stig? He hid himself as he always had. As he taught Sven to do...in work. I barely saw him. When they were not at sea, he was always busy. Always doing something. And I was no better. I rarely left my bedroom. I would not let Bjorn out of my sight for a moment. I clung to Mikael too even though he was already begging to join his fathers at sea. I refused...and Stig backed me."

She shook her head and dried her eyes with the back of her hand even though she knew that the tears would be back. "The only one I had was Olaf. And honestly, I am not sure how he stood to be around me then. All I did was cry..."

"You read and sewed too, my love," she laughed as she looked up and saw him standing by the door.

She held out her hand, "Come," she beckoned. "Why am I still surprised?" she shook her head as she shifted and made room for him on the loveseat next to her.

He wrapped her in his strong arms and drew her back into the safety that had been her rock for so damned long. A rock she hoped would be there for much longer. He brushed a kiss to the top of her head as his thumbs brushed away her tears. He just smiled and said, "Am I not always here when you need me, Rachel?"

***

Kirsty watched them. This was something she had never seen. Something so intimate, more so than even sex in some ways. She tried to even imagine the great and mighty Doctor Nancy Dickens allowing her father to comfort her like this. But her mother would have pushed him away, pushed anyone away. Then again she would never allow herself to cry, had admonished Kirsty not to. Tears were weakness. So why did they look like beauty and strength when this woman cried?

"I can go if you two want to be alone...to talk of course," she blushed.

Petrine shook her head as she looked from the man, who as Petrine said looked so much like Mikael it was obvious who his father was. To the woman, his wife that he cradled like his life depended upon it. She shook her head as she spoke once more, "No, I need to finish this story and you need to hear it."

The man laced his fingers through his wife's and drew her closer against him as he kissed away fresh tears, "You are right, my love. You need to tell it. At long last." The woman beamed as she looked up at him. The years fell away. Kirsty could see them as they must have been then. She heard this woman's words again...'never find a more loyal friend.'

She thought of others too. Petrine was right. She did not want the closeness she felt only with Bjorn. She wanted it with Mikael as well. Maybe she even wanted it with Sven, she was not sure. The question was...did she have the kind of strength that she saw in this woman to fight for it? Real strength...that did not push people away as her mother always did. Strength that saw through walls to the pain beneath.

Petrine looked up at her with a half smiled. She was glad the man had joined them. She could feel the woman's pain, even though she could not even begin to imagine what it must have felt like. Losing a husband you loved...and then your ability to bear children.

Even though this woman had three amazing sons, she had heard the way her voice cracked when she spoke of daughters. She thought of him...their conversation this morning. How would she... She could not even finish the thought. Let alone face all this woman had.

But the story was not over it seemed as Petrine began to speak again, "Bjorn's first birthday. I decided that enough was enough. All my tears would never give me that baby girl I had wanted. They were only robbing me of my sons." The older woman turned and smiled at him, "Stealing precious time from the men I loved."

She sighed, "And so Petrine was born."

Olaf nodded as he brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles as they shared the memory.

"After his birthday party, Stig told me that he had something he wanted to show me. Mind you, I had not been out of the house in months, I barely left my room back then. So even a walk in the forest and fields seemed daunting. But the man had barely spoken to me in so long. I knew I had to try, meet him half way."

She waved her hand, "He brought me here. Showed me this place for the first time." She smiled and got that far away look again. Kirsty might not know what the woman was remembering, but she felt it to her core.

"My brother built this place all on his own. Andreas and I begged and pleaded with him to let us help. Even Sven wanted to. All of us...we just wanted to find a way, something, that would reach through Rachel's pain. But he refused. Said it was something he needed to do on his own." Olaf kissed the woman's neck softly, "I always thought it was some sort of penance."

Petrine shook her head and Kirsty noticed that the tears were back. "He only ever said those words to me once more. The day he dead," the way that the man's arms tightened about his wife said all that Kirsty needed to know.

"And stubborn, foolish me...even though I knew. Even though I finally saw through it all to the man inside, I thought...I'd be damned if I was going to say them to him, if he would not say them to me. Not until that day. Only once...once in over thirty years together did I ever tell Stig how I felt about him." The tears came faster now, so fast that the woman's body shook. "And I will never know if he even heard them."

"Shhh, Rachel, it's all right. You know he did. Here...Valhalla...or whatever the hell waits for us all out there. My brother knew how you felt. He heard. You know he did," he buried his face in his wife's hair but Kirsty would have sworn she saw tears in the steely grey eyes that were identical to his son's.

She felt like an intruder. She wanted to flee. To run. But where. That bedroom always did seem too big, too overpowering, and too dark. And she had not been here long enough to find her place...her field, her greenhouse. Him...but then she remembered. He knew none of this. How could she explain without revealing a secret that was not hers to share?

Petrine looked up at her and tried her best to smile. "I know how overwhelming all this must feel to you right now. On top of everything else. I did not mean to tell you. Not yet anyway. But I guess...I guess I just want you to understand. To be wiser, kinder, stronger than I was. Than I am. I needed you to understand why I said...they all need you. Even the ones that it is not easy to love."

The woman gripped the arms about her tightly, "We are here for you. For all of you. But this is your struggle...to find your way. Your path. And we cannot walk it. We can only share what we have learned on ours. Don't waste a moment, sweetie. I know you feel, think that there is always time. But I promise you it goes so much quicker than you realize."

She smiled as much as she could through the tears, "Little boys become men. Men that you love become nothing more than memories. Your body betrays you. And all you have left in the end are those memories...and regret. Be smarter than I was...make damned sure you have more memories to keep you warm than you have cold regrets."

Kirsty fought the knot in her throat as she nodded her head. "I'll try," were the only words she could find then. She promised as she rose from the chair. No matter what the woman said, she could never imagine herself being as strong as she was. As beautiful inside and out. But she would try. For this woman...for her sons...all of them, she swore. "I will try, Petrine."

The woman, dare she think it...her new mother, shook her head and smiled as she turned to her husband, "Call me Rachel. It has been a long time, but I think you, my sweet daughter, should call me Rachel too."

Kirsty frowned at the unspoken communication she saw between the couple. Once more she felt like that interloper, witnessing something too intimate for human eyes. And this time, she stood, "Thank you. I know how hard that must have been, Petr...Rachel. But thank you. I promise I will do my best."

"That is all any of us can do," said the man as he held his wife.

She nodded and turned towards the door. She was still so caught up in it all that she completely forgot her coat hanging by the door. Until she was about ten feet from the door. A biting wind cut through her jumper and she turned. She thought about going back in there for her coat as she brought her hands up and blew on them to fight back at least a bit of the cold.

Then something warm draped about her shoulders. And she turned to stare up into his face. Not his. Not even Mikael's with whom she was beginning to build some common ground. But his. Sven's. The one man she wanted to avoid. Until she remembered her promise...'I'll try.' She just had not expected to be confronted with the opportunity so soon.

***

Damn his mother. Damn her to Helveti just then. He saw those blue pools filled with tears and he knew. Just knew. "She told you, didn't she?"

His wife could only nod. "Damn her, she should have waited. Given you time to get used to life here." Not that it surprised him, he had been blessed with one of his mother's little advice sessions all the way into town and back.

Even after all the years, the woman was still too much of an idealist. She always did want to see things her way. To ignore the harsh realities of life. This life in particular. But she really did have no right to burden this woman, their wife with those same expectations. He brushed a tear away.

"Come with me," he commanded as he took her by the elbow. She shook her head and went to pull away. But she froze when he said, "He cannot see you like this. Remember he does not know. Damn, the woman for that too. She should have told him long ago. One of us should have."

She nodded silently and fell into step with him as he led her back towards the boat. "Are you going to be the one to tell him? Tell him that his birth almost killed our mother?" He knew he was being harsh. Too harsh with her. And it was not her that he was angry with.

His mother. His uncle. The man that had been as much a father to him as he was to his own son. Hell, himself most of all. One of them should have been strong enough to end this lie long ago. To tell his brother the truth. But only once had he come close. The night Bjorn came of age. They had gotten him drunk. Hell, they had planned to get him laid. But that had not worked out so well.

He knew then that his mother had poisoned his brother's mind with her idealistic bullshit. That she had conveniently shared with him only those bits of the story that suited her. That she had not told him of the years of fighting before he was born. Of the number of times that they had fought, come to blows over her.

She had not told him, because then she would have needed to explain why all that changed. Why her husbands suddenly went from her Doms...to her slaves. Not that she meant to, not that they meant to. Hell, even he had tried all that a fucking thirteen year old boy knew to reach his mother. Even Mikael who was barely six at the time had.

But she was not going to dump this shit on his wife's shoulders...guilt her as she had all of them. Enough was enough.

"Where are we going?" she finally asked. Her voice little more than a broken whisper.

"The boat. Mikael has already taken Monika into the house. Bjorn went with them while I came to find you and my mother." He stopped, his hands gripped both of her elbows tightly. He wanted to shake her, make her see. "He cannot see you like this. He would not stop until he got the whole story out of you. And it is not your place to be the one to tell him."

He watched the play of emotions across her face as she considered his words. Then she nodded, "You're right, of course."

He laughed, "You actually admit that?"

She giggled a bit and half looked up at him, "I am not stupid."

He brushed one of the tears from the corner of her eye, "No, I never thought you were. Will you come with me to the boat then? Spend tonight with me there?"

She chuckled, "I thought that was my choice...who I called to my bed."

He smiled at her, "Oh yes, but you see we are not spending the night in your bed. We are spending it in mine and I have a surprise for you there."

***

Kirsty studied him for a long moment. Petrine...Rachel was right. Those words sounded incredibly hallow after the ones that his 'baby' brother had shared with her. But the woman was right about something else too...they were as close as this man could come to admitting that he needed or even wanted her.

And the rest was her choice. Hers alone to make. She could as the woman said...play favorites. Turn away this tiny glimmer, slam the door closed on him. Maybe even on herself, on any chance she had of reaching the man she had first been so powerfully attracted to. The one that if she were being honest she still was.

Or she could...take a tiny step forward of her own. Press her body against his as she stared up into those deep blue eyes and whisper, "I choose you." She could even stand upon her tiptoes and press a soft kiss to those lips that she remembered staring at in the café as they chatted. Remembered wondering what they would taste like. The sea, man and sex...she had discovered.

That choice was surprisingly easy actually.