Chapter Text
Victoria had for as long as she could remember lived under certain expectations, pushed and raised to be a peculiar way, and not once had she thought of being anything different from the person her parents groomed her to be. She married a man who had been like she had been raised and groomed to be what their parents and grandparents had been, and naturally it was expected from them to have children of their own and raise these children to be exactly what their parents were; there were traditions and histories to be upheld and kept alive, and so to marry and have children was expected as much as killing a werewolf was.
On their wedding day Victoria hadn’t loved Christopher, and he most certainly hadn’t loved her, not that either one of them married for love and Victoria on her part never imagined she would ever love Christopher deeply in that way which would not make him expendable.
Finding the right time to settle down, to breed, wasn’t easy especially since Victoria lacked any real desire to surrender a great chunk of her life to motherhood, but eventually she and her husband caved under the increased pressure to have a child; and most of all Victoria had grave concerns of Chris sister possibly convincing everyone she was incapable of giving an heir to the Argent-family, thus making her right to be the head of the Argent’s questionable.
Having a child was something Victoria had to do, but that didn’t say it had to come easily for her or her husband, which was made clear by the many years they kept trying and failing, forcing them to eventually turn to IVF. Victoria found the whole process of IVF rather humiliating made worse no doubt the moment Kate learned of it, every snide remark of her sister-in-law and her sneering father-in-law made was a test of her sanity and will; thankfully Chris was there, offering what little support he could, and going as far as taking the blame for their fertility problems even though the problem had been more due to the failures of her body than his.
When Victoria had been recommended to have more than one embryo planted inside her, she’d never imagined that it would result in her expecting twins, since she couldn’t imagine twins, but while she imagined one of the embryos taking and the other not, Chris did entertain the thought of twins far more open-mindedly than she did; and so when Victoria later found out that she was expecting twins, she’d felt a little uneasy about having twins, not simply due to the strain it would put her body, but also due to the extra work it would take to care of two babies at the same time.
But while Victoria worried about how two babies, at the same time, was double the work and double the trouble, Chris had been overjoyed and she’d need but look at him as his whole focus were on the grainy images of two little hears still beating inside two tiny bodies not yet formed into a proper human shape, to she need but look at Chris to know he’d love and care for them when she eventually failed to do so.
The pregnancy wasn’t an easy one for Victoria, her body and mind in constant battle with the lives growing inside her, and there was more than once a time she in a moment of privacy cursed her misery, and even went as far as to beg God to abort any of the children that might be a boy since a girl was all she wanted or needed.
Victoria hated, absolutely hated, every minute of being pregnant. Chris of course sensed this and went all out on trying to make her as comfortable and happy as possible, never judging her for her negativity.
The only time she caught Chris be disappointed or disapprove of her actions was during the scan that finally answered the most pressing of Victoria’s concerns, when her doctor informed her that baby A was a girl she’d felt herself smile for the first-time and she gave Chris hand a gentle squeeze while breathing out a loud, `Thank God. ´
However, the moment the doctor informed her happily that baby B was a boy, Victoria had gasped in horror and said, `What? No. Not a boy. ´
Chris didn’t speak to her for days after she answered his question weeks later on why she was so unhappy about having a son, her answer had simply been truthful when she’d said, `A daughter is useful to us. A boy is but a burden, a problem. ´
Once Chris began to speak to her again, he’d made it clear he wouldn’t tolerate her speaking about their son in a negative way once he was born, and she’d been rather shocked by how firm he was about this demand and begrudgingly agreed, although she made it clear the boy would be Chris’ responsibility.
When Victoria went into labour, weeks before her due-date, it was one of the most traumatic-event in her life since she had no control of the situation. While all of her concerns were for the well-being of herself and her daughter, Chris’ were for all three of them.
Although Baby A, later named Allison, was born a little bit on the smaller size she was none the less healthy and strong, the perfect girl for their family, her little brother was born small and fragile as they had been warned he would be, still although Baby B was barely able to breathe Chris had been so convinced that their son wouldn’t leave them.
When Victoria finally was allowed to lay her eyes on their son, it was mostly due to Chris insisting she come and see their son, she was taken aback by how small he truly was, he also seemed properly disgruntled by his surroundings. Victoria wasn’t impressed the slightest with her son, and neither were the rest of their family, for while everyone remarked on how beautiful and strong her daughter was, her son was deemed scrawny and a runt; yet, the runt of the family didn’t simply lay down and surrender to anything, and with each visit and every comment such as, `He’s a proper little fighter this one, ´ Victoria felt something stir in her closed-off heart.
However, it wasn’t until both babies were discharged and home, that Victoria began to notice and to some degree appreciate the subtle differences between her daughter and son. Allison was an easy and happy baby, who slept well and ate well, and who had been incredibly easy to breast feed from the get go. Allison settled easily enough when comforted, there was always a smile to found when it came to Allison. Bernard wasn’t as easy as his sister was, he was rather difficult when it came to feeding and was a restless when it came to sleeping, he would wake-up several times at night not to be changed or to be fed just for the hell of it, but although little Bernard wasn’t an easy baby Victoria grew to care for him be it slowly; still, Allison was her favourite, and all the troubles with Bernard made Victoria love and adore her daughter that little bit more.
Victoria couldn’t really say when she noticed it, but at some point, before Bernard began to move around and explore on his one, and did so long before Allison did, Victoria noticed that there was a difference in the way Allison seemed to look at the world and how Bernard did; Allison appeared to never question anything she saw, while Bernard appeared to ponder everything he heard and saw.
It became clear to her as well as her husband that the moment Bernard could begin to explore the world around him, his mood brightened and he would laugh with excitement whenever he figured out something new, which had Chris joking once, `Now we know why he was such an unhappy baby. He was just bored out of his mind. ´ The only problem with Bernard’s curiosity was all the trips to the emergency room, there wasn’t a crib, a high-chair, a playpen from which their youngest couldn’t escape from, a trait that brought Victoria and Chris grey hairs while it caused Gerard to finally praise the boy.
Allison was the first to start talking, and Victoria was overjoyed when her first word was mama and second dada, Bernard however missed the milestone when it came to speaking, and regardless of how many doctors and professionals they took their son too, the child refused to speak but eventually he did but his first-word wasn’t mama but rather a very loud and happy daddy when Chris came home after going on a hunting trip that took four-days to complete; two weeks later Victoria got to hear her son cry out after her as she left him in timeout, she didn’t rush over to him and hug him the way she’d done with Allison, instead she’d closed the nursery door and walked downstairs to spend some time with Allison, it took over a month before she heard Bernard call her mommy again.
Being a mother of twins had never seemed as an easy thing to Victoria, and no matter how much she’d done her research on twins and parenting twins, she wasn’t prepared for how truly taxing it was to raise twins, especially when she was expected to raise her daughter to one day take over for her as the leader of the Argents; and she knew deep-down that she failed at balancing her time and her affections between her two children, and the guilt over her failure to treat her son as an equal to Allison did leave her with plenty of sleepless nights.
There were days when Victoria felt like a failure of a mother, especially when she’d lose her patience with Bernard who kept making a mess of his clothes and his toys, and more often than not when she lost it with her son she’d always ask him, `Why can’t you be more like Allison? Why can’t you be as good as your sister? ´ and whenever Chris heard her say these things and argument would follow, one she knew she rightfully deserved.
Victoria loved her daughter, she loved her son too, she did, but sometimes she just found it difficult to love and care for them equally. Victoria loved her children, she really did, but being a mother and a stay at home mother at that wasn’t easy or natural for her. She needed time to breathe, to get away from the house without going to a store, sometimes she just needed to escape the everyday humdrum, and so from time to time she would pack her children into the car and drive to somewhere, often a park far from their house so she could avoid having to talk to other mothers.
They day when everything changed, when her guilt as a parent was to grow tenfold, it started out as any normal day did, be it that Chris was away on another hunting trip and she’d found Bernard alone downstairs that morning which meant she had been stuck cleaning-up the mess he’d made of the plants he’d decided needed investigating; she’d started out her morning by yelling at her son, she’d made him cry before he’d even had breakfast or she’d had her first cup of coffee.
After lunch, Victoria had decided to take her children to one of their favourite parks, thus hoping to maybe break the silent-treatment Bernard was giving her, he refused to even look at her and flinched whenever she touched him. It was a nice warm day, summer was at the door, and the park was green with some flowers already blooming, it was nice and Victoria found some form of freedom and peace there.
She’d known that this particular park and the sandbox there would provide enough of a distraction to keep Allison and her little brother distracted, to keep the two preoccupied long enough for her to relax for a moment and enjoy a ridiculously expensive cup of fancy coffee which she sipped and enjoyed without hurry.
Sitting as far from the other parents as possible, Victoria kept an eye on her twins while enjoying a moments reprieve of motherhood, enjoying the moment of not being needed and drinking a cup of coffee she hadn’t brewed herself, all the while knowing and expecting this magical moment of peace and relative quiet wouldn’t last long since Allison was always in need of her.
There’s a part of Victoria that simply wants to pretend that Allison hadn’t called out to her when her daughter does just that, but Victoria is unable to ignore her daughter who simply wants to be moved over to the swings, with a heavy sigh Victoria heads towards her daughter who adorably smiles at her which in turn causes Victoria to smile.
Victoria picks-up the daughter that smiles up at her and who is reaching out towards her eagerly, throwing a quick glance over at her youngest who sat at the far end of the sandbox, Victoria can’t help but smile fondly at the look of wonder and curiosity plastered upon Bernard’s cute little face; her son was completely unaware of her sister and mother as he watched the butterfly that had landed upon his little bright-yellow spade, and not for the first-time Victoria amuses herself with the thought of what sort of young man her son might’ve become if he’d been born into another family.
Satisfied that Bernard was well and truly distracted, Victoria focuses her attention on Allison who suddenly wants a bit of juice too, it really doesn’t take all that long for Victoria to give her daughter a drink, then without glancing over to where her son Victoria took her daughter over to the swings, half-heartedly listening to Allison’s babbling.
Victoria pushes her daughter on the swing a couple of times, a peculiar sense of unease settling in her gut, this sensation has her turning her attention towards the sandbox.
At first the sight of the yellow spade abandoned in the sandbox doesn’t cause her alarm, she’s used to Bernard going for Allison’s toys whenever her sister abandoned them which often had Victoria ripping dolls from his tiny hands and tiaras off of his head, she turns her attention to the spot where Allison had been playing only to find some snotty nosed boy with too many freckles sitting where she’d expected to find her son.
Not seeing her son in the sandbox sparks an unfamiliar feeling within her, and it takes her a moment to understand what the horrible sensation within her is.
Dread unlike any washes over her mercilessly, her chest feels tight and the heart within it begins to beat in an unfamiliar and dreadful way, it leaves her struggling to breathe and think, it makes it harder for her not to scream like some hysterical woman for her youngest.
Still, although her mind begins to crack with the horror of the situation, Victoria attempts to not give in to the panic that wants to consume her whole, and instead focus on finding her son who might’ve just wandered off to explore something.
Victoria takes a loudly protesting and then crying Allison off the swing and starts to look around the playground, hoping to find her son standing beneath one of the trees and gawking up at a squirrel or gone over to ask an adult what they were reading, watching as a bunch of older-kids were ridding their bikes and trying to play cool and capable to a bunch of girls watching them. Victoria wants to find her son watching and listening to the birds hiding in the shrubs, she wants to find her wide-eyed son playing with some random child he’d decided deserved his company, she wants to find her son petting some dog or exploring some flower or just petting the grassy ground while whispering secrets into the growing grass, but what Victoria finds isn’t what she wants to find.
Bernard is nowhere to be found. Her little boy was nowhere to be seen. He was gone.
Her heart sinks, her entire body goes cold with fear that came from living in the knowledge that the world was full of monsters.
With no sign of her youngest, her son who still had only spoke two words, Victoria begins to panic and begins in earnest to call out the name Chris had chosen for their son since Victoria hadn’t been bothered with naming their son, she calls out his name without any ability or will to control the way Bernard’s name falls from her lips. She’s unable to keep the fear from her voice, the frantic way with which she calls for her youngest shocks Allison silent, the frantic way with which she calls for her special child alerts the other parents and children to something being wrong.
Once others begin to ask what’s wrong, once others share her sense of alarm, a sense of panic she’d never experienced before washed over her. The grave reality of her situation crashing over her mercilessly as strangers come to her aide.
Her son was gone.
She’d lost her son.
It doesn’t take long before people start to search for Bernard, even the group of teens join in, the boys no longer interested in impressing the girls but instead focused on finding her missing child.
A group of mothers, familiar with each other split-up into two groups, one staying behind to look after the children while the rest join the search party, an elderly couple who had been walking their old-dog begin to pray for the safe return of her son.
Victoria didn’t call the police, the though never even crossed her mind, and yet they arrived soon enough.
She’s bombarded with question while she continues to hold on tightly to the one child she hadn’t lost, some questions she’s able to understand are important while others are simply ridiculous and annoying to her. If Victoria was honest, calling the police hadn’t even crossed her frantic mind, not when she considered them useless, after all she was convinced that it wouldn’t be some normal human who’d kidnapped her son, there was no way some human could’ve reached her son without her noticing it.
Instead of calling the police, Victoria had called her father-in-law trusting him and his men to find her son and whatever had taken him. The arrival of the hunters and their dogs gave her comfort and hope, while it caused more than a few eyebrows to rise, Victoria had believed firmly that her son would be found, she however wasn’t entirely convinced he would be found alive and unharmed; and as she watched her father-in-law bark orders at the men who worked under his command, Victoria feared most of all that come nightfall she would have to put her own son down, after all she wouldn’t put it past a werewolf to turn her son in hopes of leverage.
~*~
His hands were shaking, the screwdriver unsteady in his hands as he stood ready to take the crib apart, this is the only thing left in the room that had once been Allison’s and Bernard’s nursery, they’d moved Allison out of the room years ago, leaving one half of the room empty while the other had until a few days ago held everything of Bernard’s in its proper place.
Chris has kept the room as it is for all these years, even after Allison moved from a crib to a so-called big girl bed, he’d been unable to take the crib apart or allow Victoria to give Bernard’s clothes and toys away. He knows he’s been irrational about it all, after all his son wouldn’t fit in his crib or clothes by now, hasn’t fit in them for years now, and yet the thought of giving anything away of Bernard’s had felt like giving-up on him completely.
`It’s been years. ´ Chris tells himself, his voice breaking and there are tears once more stinging in his eyes, `It’s been years. ´
He has to take the crib apart, he’d promised Victoria he’d have it done before she came home with Allison, and considering that Victoria had already packed all of Bernard other things, driven boxes of his things to the women’s shelter the crib was all that was left of a time long since passed.
Chris has to take the crib apart tonight, they would be moving out of their house, moving away from this place in a few days and they couldn’t leave the crib just standing here, empty and forgotten.
It shouldn’t be this hard, Chris thinks while he feels himself falling apart.
Chris had reluctantly accepted, with intervention and therapy, that he had stop chasing ghost and do what was right for his daughter, and what was best for Allison was not having to grow-up constantly reminded of the loss they’d suffered.
Allison needed him to stop chasing ghosts, to instead be there for her.
`I’m so sorry. ´ Chris whispers into the silent room as he begins to work on taking Bernard’s bed apart, `I’m so, so, so sorry. ´ he repeats these words over and over until the bed is in pieces, and Victoria finds him sobbing uncontrollably in the corner of the room where the crib once stood.