Timeless

Chapter 53

A/N: We're getting close to the end....ahh it makes me want to cry bc this is my baby haha.

August 1948

All things considered and nickname of Mini-Menace aside, Daisy Cleven was a perfectly well-behaved baby. She rarely cried, except for when she was hungry or when she wanted to be held. It was immediately clear to Kathryn Cleven that Daisy was a daddy's girl—Daisy was perfectly calm and content whenever she was in Gale's arms. And she loved it even more when her father sang to her.

For Kathryn, she didn't remember her father all that much. He wasn't fond of her and he had passed when she was barely 10 years old—her memories with him were few and far between. But watching Gale tenderly get up every time that Daisy cried in the night or needed a single thing, Kathryn wondered if it was possible to fall deeper in love with Gale Cleven more than she already was.

It wasn't that Daisy wasn't good for Kathryn. No, there was something else. You see, Kathryn was altogether very pleased to be a mother and had waited what felt like her entire life to become one. It had been a difficult journey to even becoming a mother and she was grateful that she had Daisy.

But maybe in the depths of shoving Doctor Egan down, Kathryn recognized that there was something wrong with her. Something inherently wrong. Wrong in the fact that she just felt empty and hollowed out inside—and she was missing the constant presence of being pregnant and that wasn't right .

She had heard of the baby blues, of course. It wasn't something she was altogether acquainted with, but it wasn't uneheard of for some women to just be off after childbirth. Kathryn was a doctor—she knew that for hundreds of years, men had been attributing far too many things to pregnancy and the uterus.

But she wondered if there was some truth to pregnancy being a factor in causing some sort of break from reality—or if something had caused a change. She was bound and determined to medically get to the bottom of the cause because the fact of the matter is that she knew she should have been happier than she was.

See, Kathryn had a hypothesis—and it had everything to do with hormones and the changes that women underwent in the stages of pregnancy. It was altogether possible that the hormones could cause negative changes as well as positive changes. And so any baby blues or odd moods could be attributed to hormones, not just a lack of joy.

Because there were shining moments in the enveloping darkness where Kathryn Cleven felt absolutely thrilled—she'd be sitting there and rocking Daisy to sleep or nursing her and she felt bursts of joy. Like there were little rays of sun falling and bathing them in it.

But then there were other times, far more often, where Kathryn just wanted to cry and she had no damn idea why. It was frustrating. She had nothing to be sad about, nothing to be angry about—she had a beautiful home, a wonderful husband and a healthy daughter, the best dog in the entire world—

So one day, in the middle of their routine (which they had down quite well at this point), Gale was surprised to see Kathryn's medical books making an appearance at the dining room table. See, their routine was simple:

If Daisy cried in the middle of the night at all, Gale was the first one up and bringing her into Kathryn if she was hungry. If not, he'd gently get her back to sleep so that Kathryn could get the rest that she so desperately needed.

Then he'd help Kathryn with breakfast before leaving and heading out for work. Josie would pop in to check in on things at the house, and then Gale would think about his wife and daughter the entire time he was at work. Following work, Gale would take care to get daisies each week—dutiful to brightening the house with his daughter's namesake.