Don't know how to Love

Part 43

It had been a couple days since the big incident. It was late afternoon, Maria and Sharon had come over. Nat was sleeping in her swing in the living room, Sharon was sitting on the couch watching TV, Maria and Wanda were in the kitchen, whispering to each other like mommies usually do.

"Maria, I just don't know what to do..." Wanda muttered, her voice laced with worry.

"Wanda, you did everything I would have done. You protected her and got her away from him, there isn't much else you could have done."

"I'm just worried Maria."

"But why? She's sitting right over there, sleeping peacefully-"

"Oh you just wait until she wakes up."

Maria looked at Wanda in with a 'really?!' face. Wanda nodded, "Really..."

"I don't know how that must have been for her-"

"But that's the thing, I don't either." Wanda interrupted

"What do you mean?"

"Well, little her seems to be ok, but she didn't get time to like...process what had happened. She cried for a little longer than an hour after I got her home but now it's just nightmares. Don't get me wrong, those are awful too, for both of us. But that's all that's happened."

Maria didn't know what to say, she was always the person Wanda could go to for advice but Maria had no experience in this kind of trauma. She didn't know what she should or shouldn't say.

"I'm concerned about how big her is going to react, because I'm going to assume she was big when he-he took her...and when she's big she'll probably be able to tell me what actually happened."

"God Wanda...Like look at her, who would want to do that to such an innocent baby?"

"An awful, awful person..." Wanda paused and watched as Nat slept in her swing, the two of them were pulled out of their thoughts when Nat started to squirm and whine, getting more and more desperate every second. Everything had escalated so quickly. 

"n-no! mama! noo! s'op!" Nat had tears starting to trickle down her face, her paci had fallen out of her mouth. "mama! no!!"

Both Wanda and Maria jumped up, hurrying to get to their littles. Maria picked up a frightened Sharon from the couch, Sharon had her own nightmares but they never came close to as bad as Nat's. Wanda turned the swing off and lifted Nat up, holding her head on her shoulder.

"Hey baby girl, mama's right here. You're ok, you're safe. Mama's right here bubs." She whispered as she started to gently bounce Nat, trying to calm her as soon as she could.

Nat was crying into her shoulder, Wanda bent forward and grabbed her paci, putting it in her pocket. She turned around and walked over to Maria.

"I'll be right back."

"We can leave-"

"Don't be silly, give us five minutes."

"Ok." Maria lightly grinned at Wanda's persistency.

Wanda walked past Maria to the nursery, she opened the door, and walked in. She kept circling the room, very slowly. Starting to calm Nat, until she was hiccuping and sniffling. Wanda could feel Nat gripping her shirt tightly, it just made her heart ache, knowing how scared her baby was.

"m-mama..."

Wanda went over to the crib and gently laid Nat down, she stood back up and melted at her. Nat had her usual puffy eyes paired with a pouty lip. Wanda bent forward and gave her a kiss on the forehead.