Wandering Off

A tiny bit of Ladynoir

"Before you start to yell, I would like to have a word with you in private!", Gabriel bellowed as he jumped to his feet and ran towards my mother to keep her from coming inside just now. "Nathalie? Would you please..."

"Stay with her? Of course, Sir!", she finished for him and while he laid a hand on maman's back and nudged her away from my room, Nathalie sat down beside me and laid an arm around my shoulders.

For once, I wasn't crying, instead I shook in fear. I had always imagined, telling my mother about her first grandchild, when we were having a sweet talk in the kitchen, a cup of tea before us, eating some of her cookies. And I had imagined, she would be happy about it. But after all that had happened and how much she was against me, being with Mr Agreste, I couldn't even hope for that.

"Please try to stay calm. It's not good for either of you. And I've been reading somewhere, that the baby can sense your emotions. Though I don't believe it, we still wouldn't want to scare the little seamonkey, right?"

Her, reminding me of the seamonkey reference, I had once made, caused me to giggle and I wasn't that scared anymore. I nodded and whispered, while leaning my head trustfully on her shoulder:

"You're right, thank you, Nathalie!"

"You're welcome. And now, as we are waiting here anyway, tell me everything, the doctor said!"

I laughed and started with the rather handsome intern and the incident, making her grin, because she imagined the look on Gabriel's face, when he noticed.

Said man had in the meantime brought my mother into his office and locked the door, so neither we, nor Adrien would be able to hear them.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully", he began with a threatening tone, while Maman could barely keep her mouth shut. "You can yell at 'me' as much as you like. You can even slap me, if you feel the urge. But", he paused and gave her an intense glare, "if you go back into your daughter's room, don't show her anything of that. Just be her mother, be happy with her and be there for her, as if she was with someone, you approved of and was telling you, that you're going to be a grandmother soon. If you can't do that, I won't let you see her, do you understand me!"

My mother stood there and stared at him, her mouth agape.

"I....I thought you were just.......but.....this sounds as if......you really cared", she stammered, "so you do love her!"

Gabriel nodded as he held out his hand to her.

"Well, I told you, that I did.
Can we at least for now, make peace for your daughter's and grandchild's sake?"

She inhaled deeply, then shook his hand.

"For now, we're good. And now I want to go see my child!", she gave in.

A moment later, there was another knock on my door, a rather reluctant one.

"Yes?", I asked softly and when it opened, I saw Gabriel behind my mother, who to my surprise wasn't yelling. Yet.

She just came towards me and pulled me into her arms, kissing my cheeks and stroking my head, while she whispered, her voice husky, because she was crying:

"I can't believe, that my baby is having a baby!"

"Wait! Are those.....happy tears?", I asked in disbelief and she nodded, while she wiped her face with her sleeve.

"Of course they are! What did you think, I would do? Repudiate you? Disown you? Of what by the way, but, I am your mother and even if I don't like, that you are with a man double your age, I would never do anything like that! I love you very much and nothing will ever change that. And I also love that tiny human, that's growing inside of you. So, yes, they are indeed happy tears. And if you had told me before, I wouldn't have been so suspicious that you had some kind of eating disorder or something. And it explains your weird food choice and the avoiding of coffee most of the time. Damn, I could have figured that out, if I hadn't been so focused on Mr Agreste, Gabriel...", she gave him a light smile, "...only using you. I have to apologize once again, for the things I accused you of!" She looked at Nathalie and added: "To you too, though you probably don't know, what I am talking about!"