WHO: THE ALDERTONS
WHAT: THE FEELS
WHERE: THEIR HOUSE
WHEN: ELSIE'S BIRTHDAY (2/10)
This was bad, this was very bad.
Elsie laid her head on the cool porcelain of the bathtub next to the toilet, trying to take a deep breath before the nausea washed over her again. Day four since the vomiting had begun. She done her best to keep it to herself, not wanting to provoke more panic than she herself was feeling, but hiding was easier done outside of the house. Easier done on a day that was not her birthday. She covered well enough in saying that, as it seemed they were all a bit under the weather, she'd like nothing more than a quiet day, but as Elsie wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, she didn't want even that.
She couldn't be pregnant again. She didn't have the strength, or the will, to go through it all again, and that was shaming. But she just couldn't, because the thought of reliving those excruciatingly painful nine months brought stinging tears to her eyes. Having done the math, it was… possible. Only just, but it was possible, and she would have to find out for certain, soon. She retched again, but this time it was entirely out of fear.
When she stood, she washed her hands under too-hot water, scrubbing them raw with soap. She splashed enough of it onto her cheeks that the heat forced colour onto ashen skin. Running a wet hand through hair more tangled than curled, she finally began to dab herself dry.
The reflection that greeted Elsie had overly bright eyes over shadows, and her shoulders slumped. She'd hoped to distract from her gauntish appearance with an upbeat attitude, but the tiredness… well, she'd paste on a smile in a moment. She pulled her dressing gown more tightly around herself, wishing it were thicker.
Stepping out, she closed the door behind her and nearly wilted against it. Closing her eyes, Elsie rested for a moment and took a breath.
Liam stood on a stool in the kitchen, licking a spoon of cake mix instead of stirring the batter in the bowl. He immediately wiped it on his apron as his father turned around, and stuck it in the batter once again. Elliot grinned, but it was a shaky one. The past week and a half had been rough---the full moon had left him with zero energy and a slight fever, so it was taking him longer than usual to bounce back. By the time he’d be feeling fit again, the moon would be back and he’d have to go through it all again.
Which was the usual cycle, he supposed, but most months he had a week or two of feeling physically all right. Right now it was hard to even stand, let alone bake two dozen cupcakes.
Elliot had really hoped to feel better by Elsie’s birthday. With it being so close to Valentine’s Day he had always tried to put forth some extra effort, but today just making cupcakes was proving difficult. At least Liam was a bit more capable this year, even if they’d been pulling pieces of eggshell out of the batter for a good ten minutes. Elysia jumped in her bouncy seat, interested in all the fuss in the kitchen, but unable to do anything but bob up and down. If it wasn’t for how weak he felt, Elliot would say that they looked rather picturesque, save for the missing piece of his wife.
“Liam,” Elliot said, “time to pour.”
“Just another lick,” Liam said, pulling the spoon out and jumping off the stool before Elliot could snatch it away. The boy skittered to the other side of the kitchen island and Elliot began to pour the cake batter into the two cupcake trays. Managing to fill them with just enough, Elliot carefully swished his wand to levitate them to the stove. They hovered over the table and began their journey, and but they only made it halfway across the kitchen when Elliot was startled and the trays toppled to the ground.
The large round clock on the wall had begun to morph and
change, crevices and craters growing on its face. Its familiar luminous glow began to blind Elliot and he backed into the counter, grabbing his hair. No, no, was this some sort of
trick? A full moon, a giant full moon in his
kitchen---From the corner of his eye he spotted Liam shoot from the room. But
Elysia needed to get out of here, he couldn’t transform with the
children still here----
The clangor had Elsie's eyes snapping open, and she leapt away from the door. Her brows pulled down in confusion as she started to walk toward the source of the noise when Liam was suddenly running at her with wide eyes.
"It's Dad," he said breathlessly, already towing her with his little hand. "Something happened—"
She didn't know what would be waiting for her in the kitchen, couldn't think about it too hard for the split seconds it took to get there, but she was sprinting towards the kitchen before he'd even finished. Skidding to a halt when she passed through the doorway, her gaze immediately landed on the shape in the corner. Barely glancing away, she scooped Elysia out of her little seat and held her out for Liam to take. "Can you put her down in your room?" she asked as lightly as she could, smoothing her hand over his head when he'd taken the baby carefully from her arms. "Stay there." She rose from her slightly crouched position slowly once she heard the slight footsteps echoing away.
Elsie's heart was pounding so crazily, she thought it a miracle she was still upright. The fear had ground her nausea to a halt, it was true, but it also had her head spinning. She'd never seen Elliot like this before, not ever. He was pulling at his hair as he shrank back into the corner, feral-sounding noises escaping him. Her panic was spiralling out of control, because she didn't know what to do, and seeing him in what must be pain hurt her.
"What's wrong?" she asked, making her way very, very slowly toward him, her palms facing outward in a steadying gesture. "Shh, shh, shh, it's all right, just tell me what's wrong."
“No, no, no, no, no,” he shouted out over and over at the sound of Elsie’s voice. She couldn’t be here, she couldn’t be
here! The full moon wasn’t for another two weeks, how was this
happening? The glow of the moon was blinding, and Elliot’s hands pressed roughly onto his eyes to burn away the image, “You can’t be here!”
He was going to turn, he was going to turn---right in his own kitchen, he was going to turn and he was going to kill his family. Elliot let out an anguished moan as he dropped down to the floor, feet sliding out from under him. The bones in his body were aching,
throbbing at the sight of the full moon. Elliot couldn’t breathe, but even in his sheer panic some voice in his head knew that this wasn’t
right. The feeling of his bones cracking and shifting...the ghosts of those pains were often felt when he looked up at any-sized moon, but the full moon wasn’t for
weeks. He
knew that.
Today was Elsie’s birthday, Valentine’s was soon, they’d figured out he would be
okay.
“I’m going to turn,” he groaned, twisting away and pressing his forehead against the wood of the cabinet. Elliot’s breaths were heavy and laborious, “I feel like----” he let out a sound that could only be described as a growl and he gritted his teeth, “I feel like I’m turning!”
He held himself tightly, fingernails digging into his arms as he attempted to force away the pain, force away the horrific image of tearing apart his kitchen, his family. The moon, that
moon, “Turn off the moon---
please!”
Bile was rising up her throat, but it didn't have anything to do with her being ill. As she watched him in mute horror, her heart gave out to pure panic for three interminably long seconds.
She'd never seen Elliot transform. She didn't think she could stomach the sight and not lose her mind, and it certainly wouldn't have been safe for her to, but she knew well enough, from books and such, of what it must be like. Of what it would do to him. But Elliot couldn't be turning now, he
couldn't be, because there was no moon—it wasn't even nighttime, it was impossible. She didn't know what was happening to him, but it wasn't that, even if whatever it was twisted her heart up into violent knots. Elsie swallowed through the rising lump in her throat.
Then, without hesitation, she fell to her knees in front of him. "You are not turning," she said fiercely. "You're fine, you're—look at me, look at me—" Without thought, she grabbed his face and tugged it towards her, leaning in as close to him as she could manage. "You are fine. You're not turning. Everything's all right. I am not going to let anything happen to you, do you hear me?" Her voice hitched at the end, but she held on, she resisted shaking him even when her voice rose slightly in hysteria. She had to make him listen.
He moaned in agony, a stream of tears forcing their way out of his tightly shut eyes. Elliot felt like he couldn’t
breathe, the fear and the pain encapsulating him. His chest hitched wildly and it wasn’t until he felt Elsie’s hands grab onto him that he was able to open his eyes. She was blurry at first, the brightness of the room and his watery eyes hindering his vision, but soon his eyes were flickering across her face, focusing and unfocusing as he attempted to hear and heed her words.
He wasn’t turning? How could he
not be turning? The pain felt real, he would have sworn he’d heard the cracking of his bones, the sick, twisted noises that were his limbs stretching and dislocating only to be lodged back in place. Elliot’s head throbbed, eyes swollen and red. If he wasn’t turning, then what was this pain? Elsie’s words echoed in his mind, and he had to believe Elsie. She was the shining light he followed to unbury himself from the misery of being a werewolf. Her face was the last thing he imagined before his body began to shift and the first thing he thought of when awakening from a transformation was seeing Elsie’s face again.
Elliot blinked at her as he finally managed to take some deep breaths. He was doused in sweat, from his panic, from the fever he’d been nursing all week, or maybe from some other force that he couldn’t understand. The pain across his body simmered into a tingling sensation, and all he could manage to do was take hold of her robe weakly in his hands.
“I saw the moon,” he mumbled. Where had it come from? Elliot’s breath shuddered and he shut his eyes again, his head dropping to Elsie’s. “It was there...I saw it.”
Perhaps it was because the scene she had just witnessed chilled her to the bone, but it felt as if Elliot was burning in her arms. The panic she had had a momentary hold on spun wildly out of her control. Her hands trembled when they slipped from his cheeks to behind his neck, as she brought him closer to her.
She didn't know what to do for him. Something had gone horribly wrong with the last moon cycle. His fever was spiralling out of control, and could be the only cause for the terrifying episode he suffered. Elsie had horrible flashbacks, vicious ones, about her father, sick and bedridden because of a virulent flu and her hands spasmed around Elliot, clutching him tighter. Her muscles were quaking so violently that her thighs gave out, and she dropped the rest of the way to the floor. She couldn't let the same thing happen to Elliot. She
wouldn't let the same thing happen to him. No matter what she had to do, she'd find a way—she would find a way, and it would work this time.
Trying for deep breaths, Elsie's mind was a whirl as she fought back her own nausea. She needed to take him to St Mungo's, except she couldn't. The moment the Healers saw his file, there was no guarantee they would treat a lycanthrope. But between Dedalus, Eliza, and herself, surely they could find a way to help him. They had to, there was no other choice.
"I'm sorry," she whispered in his ear, stroking her fingers through his hair while hot tears trekked silently down her face. "I'm so sorry, I'll find a way to make you better."
