Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: Exception
Jun. 15th, 2015 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblemynameWarnings: The usual for the 'verse - child abuse and exploitation, underage, violence and references to violence.
A/N: Written for the "secret child" square for my Trope Bingo card. Not quite as storyish as I was hoping and far more fanficcish, but ah well, it exists.
Summary: When she woke up nauseous and sick and went to fight and train anyway, when she stumbled off the mats to find a private corner with a trash can to lose all the food she hadn't eaten, when her body ached in strange places and she couldn't find a comfortable way to sleep—she hadn't known any better. She hadn't known she was pregnant, so she didn't tell Kilter.
Shift knew now. She still didn't tell him.
The first time Meld healed her...after, Shift could see the startlement flickering behind dark eyes and feel uncertainty through his touch. Flesh knitted, wounds closed. She kept her gaze steady on his beneath half-closed eyelids until the pain finally left her, bleeding out into the red trails left on her skin.
He could heal her body, but he couldn't clean her up without taking wet cloth and soap like everybody else.
"Kilter doesn't know, does he?" Meld asked later, quietly, when they were sitting side by side on a park bench waiting to take out the last contact involved in this terrorist mess.
They were military black operatives. This is what they did. They were teenagers, they'd once been children, and this was all they had ever done.
Something inside Shift clenched. Had she been innocent, it would have mourned, but there was no room in her life for innocence. When she was still a child, seven years old and fiercely defiant, they had broken her at last in the chamber. She'd woken up screaming for nights and nights after, but she'd broken down, accepted the monster inside of her they wanted her to be, and she could not mourn now the choices she made.
"No," she said. "He doesn't."
Shift was barely even old enough to drive. She'd slit a man's throat sooner than kiss him, but Kilter, Kilter...
She loved to fight him when he slipped in her window quietly and infiltrated her cover's home. She loved the look in his eyes when she bloodied herself and him, loved the taste of him when she kissed him. They hadn't known what they were doing. They were children and they had never known anything else.
When she woke up nauseous and sick and went to fight and train anyway, when she stumbled off the mats to find a private corner with a trash can to lose all the food she hadn't eaten, when her body ached in strange places and she couldn't find a comfortable way to sleep—she hadn't known any better. She hadn't known she was pregnant, so she didn't tell Kilter.
Shift knew now. She still didn't tell him.
"Who knows?" Watcher asked quietly, later again, in the medical section of the base they called home. She was their team leader and in one glance, she'd known Shift was troubled and the only thing left to trouble her now.
Shift leaned back on the medical bed and kept her suspicion and wary gaze on the doctor prepping to examine her. "Meld. You knew he would." She looked at Watcher. "He won't tell."
Meld was trustworthy. Shift had nearly given her life away time and again to keep him alive. He'd done the same for her. They were team members. That mattered.
Watcher merely brushed the hair back from Shift's eyes. She wasn't older than any of them, but she was their leader, their mother. "I know," she said, and she did.
Shift waited for the cold jelly on her stomach and then the image of her daughter to flicker onto the screen. Her nails dug into Watcher's arm, and she held on, never looking away from that image. "They can't have her," she whispered, fiercely, defiant. She would do the military's dirtiest work but she wouldn't let her daughter.
Watcher hushed her gently. "They won't."
Every member of the team got an exception, one thing they could say no to without repercussion. Meld wouldn't kill with his power—healing that cut both ways. Sear wouldn't play lover. Kismet wouldn't kill. Watcher— No one knew what Watcher's exception was. No one knew Shift's either.
"Elisabeth," she said softly over her newborn daughter's head before they took the child away. Elisabeth was her exception.
A/N: Written for the "secret child" square for my Trope Bingo card. Not quite as storyish as I was hoping and far more fanficcish, but ah well, it exists.
Summary: When she woke up nauseous and sick and went to fight and train anyway, when she stumbled off the mats to find a private corner with a trash can to lose all the food she hadn't eaten, when her body ached in strange places and she couldn't find a comfortable way to sleep—she hadn't known any better. She hadn't known she was pregnant, so she didn't tell Kilter.
Shift knew now. She still didn't tell him.
The first time Meld healed her...after, Shift could see the startlement flickering behind dark eyes and feel uncertainty through his touch. Flesh knitted, wounds closed. She kept her gaze steady on his beneath half-closed eyelids until the pain finally left her, bleeding out into the red trails left on her skin.
He could heal her body, but he couldn't clean her up without taking wet cloth and soap like everybody else.
"Kilter doesn't know, does he?" Meld asked later, quietly, when they were sitting side by side on a park bench waiting to take out the last contact involved in this terrorist mess.
They were military black operatives. This is what they did. They were teenagers, they'd once been children, and this was all they had ever done.
Something inside Shift clenched. Had she been innocent, it would have mourned, but there was no room in her life for innocence. When she was still a child, seven years old and fiercely defiant, they had broken her at last in the chamber. She'd woken up screaming for nights and nights after, but she'd broken down, accepted the monster inside of her they wanted her to be, and she could not mourn now the choices she made.
"No," she said. "He doesn't."
Shift was barely even old enough to drive. She'd slit a man's throat sooner than kiss him, but Kilter, Kilter...
She loved to fight him when he slipped in her window quietly and infiltrated her cover's home. She loved the look in his eyes when she bloodied herself and him, loved the taste of him when she kissed him. They hadn't known what they were doing. They were children and they had never known anything else.
When she woke up nauseous and sick and went to fight and train anyway, when she stumbled off the mats to find a private corner with a trash can to lose all the food she hadn't eaten, when her body ached in strange places and she couldn't find a comfortable way to sleep—she hadn't known any better. She hadn't known she was pregnant, so she didn't tell Kilter.
Shift knew now. She still didn't tell him.
"Who knows?" Watcher asked quietly, later again, in the medical section of the base they called home. She was their team leader and in one glance, she'd known Shift was troubled and the only thing left to trouble her now.
Shift leaned back on the medical bed and kept her suspicion and wary gaze on the doctor prepping to examine her. "Meld. You knew he would." She looked at Watcher. "He won't tell."
Meld was trustworthy. Shift had nearly given her life away time and again to keep him alive. He'd done the same for her. They were team members. That mattered.
Watcher merely brushed the hair back from Shift's eyes. She wasn't older than any of them, but she was their leader, their mother. "I know," she said, and she did.
Shift waited for the cold jelly on her stomach and then the image of her daughter to flicker onto the screen. Her nails dug into Watcher's arm, and she held on, never looking away from that image. "They can't have her," she whispered, fiercely, defiant. She would do the military's dirtiest work but she wouldn't let her daughter.
Watcher hushed her gently. "They won't."
Every member of the team got an exception, one thing they could say no to without repercussion. Meld wouldn't kill with his power—healing that cut both ways. Sear wouldn't play lover. Kismet wouldn't kill. Watcher— No one knew what Watcher's exception was. No one knew Shift's either.
"Elisabeth," she said softly over her newborn daughter's head before they took the child away. Elisabeth was her exception.
