┏━━━━⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚⋆━━━━┓

MY BABY, MY BABY

IN WHAT SEEMED LIKE A MATTER OF MOMENTS, NELLY SEQUOIA'S LIFE CHANGED FOREVER.

Three days had passed since her conversation with the Call boy, and despite the fact that his mother still stopped by almost daily, she hadn't seen him. She hadn't seen anyone much, for that matter, because slowly the visitors began to decline as slowly as Tate's wretched coughing began to diminish.

Nelly took that as a sign that her brother was once again on the road to recovery, especially when she'd visited him just the night before to re-tuck him into bed. He gave her his strongest smile, a mumbled I love you, and she could practically feel her heart swell in her chest. This was a good thing.

There was a pep in her step that next morning as she got ready, hearing a total lack of the bone-rattling noises that usually came from her brother's room. It was still relatively early, but given that it was a Thursday, she knew her mother had gone off to work and her grandmother was most likely in town getting the breads she liked from the bakery.

It was calm, peaceful even, as Nelly shrugged on a pair of leggings and a white t-shirt. She toed a paint can out of her way as she made her way towards her bedroom door, opening it easily.

There were no sounds coming from the boy's room, but that was a blessing these days, so she continued on to the kitchen. She went ahead and made herself a bowl of cereal, getting a twin bowl out and dumping a couple Lucky Charms into it. Even if Tate wasn't hungry for a full breakfast like he would've been had he been sickness-free, he still needed to eat something; and if that something was dry cereal, that would simply have to do.

She quickly finished hers off before dumping it in the sink, taking the bowl of dry cereal and starting for Tate's bedroom. Chances are he would be awake given his own lack of sleep, so she merely let herself in, albeit a little quietly just incase he found slumber easily that night.

Nelly's smile was wiped from her face the minute her eyes set themselves on the scene before her, the bowl of cereal falling from her now limp grasp and into the carpeted floor. Her feet were moving, her hands were grabbing at his pale face and opened eyes. "Tate? Tate, can you hear me?"

Eyes that weren't registering her— eyes that seemed colder, now.

Eyes that were indicative of something else entirely.

˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚

The house was incredibly still.

So still, in fact, that when Tabitha Greene came back home later than usual that morning, she thought that maybe the children had still been asleep. However, she'd had a hand in raising them, and she knew better.

Something was wrong.

She put her purse down and ventured into the home, calling out for Nelly as she approached the girl's room. Her bed was made neatly, closet slightly ajar, and there was no sign of life. Her next option was her grandson's room, and that was precisely where she found them both.

In the doorway, stepping over the cereal on the ground and the bowl that landed further away, she saw a sight she thought she'd never see in her lifetime.

Nelly had managed to climb into the small bed beside Tate, her body against the wall with her arms latched around his body. She was holding him like how she'd first held him when he was a baby, supporting his head with her arm while the rest of him was on her lap. Her grip on him was unrelenting, her eyes trained on his face with an undisclosed emotion.

Tate's eyes were closed, head lolled in a way that told Tabitha exactly what she walked into. Despite what others like Billy Black and Sam Uley told her, she had hope that her grandson would fulfill his destiny— but they were right; his body wasn't strong enough for what trait he was bound to inherit.

And as a result, the universe killed him for it.

With a deep breath, she approached the scene. "Honey," she called out to her granddaughter, though she got no verbal response. "You need to let him go, okay?"

Somehow, Nelly's grip on the boy tightened. "He's fine, Grandma," came her wobbled response, her chin resting on top of Tate's head. "He's just resting. He's fine."

"He's gone, Nelly."

Nelly's eyes squeezed shut. "You don't know what you're talking about!" the girl snapped, and there was a telltale hitch in her throat as she shook his head. "I'm not leaving until he wakes up."

Tabitha could only nod, wracking her brain on her next course of action. She'd need to make some calls, to her daughter first and to the others on the council second.

Because if Tate wasn't strong enough, there was always the possibility that Nelly, the girl destined for something similar, wouldn't be strong enough either.

˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚

Mary-Anne Greene always said her life revolved around her two beautiful children. She also joked that had Michael Sequoia wanted custody all those years ago, she would've killed him so she could have her babies with her.

She'd go to bat for her kids, would move mountains for them, and if she had to, she would die for them. No parent ever needed to know the feeling of losing a child— especially not in the way she lost her little Tatum.

When Tabitha called her, saying it was an emergency, she dropped everything and sped home as fast as she could. She was walking in blind, but mothers always had their instincts; and hers were screaming at her that she'd finally lost her boy.

Her instincts were right, but the scene in Tate's room was even more jarring than she could've ever imagined. Her daughter's body looked stiff, holding him for what would've been a little over two hours before Tabitha arrived, and the tear tracks on her face that had dried were a pitiful sight.

The rational thing someone would do in this situation was to try and pry Nelly away from her brother, so that when a phone call would be made, paramedics could extract him from the home without much fuss.

But Mary–Anne took one look at the distress her daughter was in and threw her rationality out the window. So, she did what she knew would be the best thing for them all.

The woman tucked herself on top of the bed, her arms reaching out for both of her children, grounding them to each other. Nelly's eyes drifted to hers, the pair exchanging a simple look of mourning.

They sobbed together over the loss of their baby.

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚⋆

[ wyn's note ]

mitski's 'i bet on losing dogs' but specifically the 'my baby my babyyy ur my baby say it to me' part.... tate was her baby!!!!!! HE WAS THEIR BABY!!!!!

tate's body couldn't handle phasing because he was actually sick something else (more on that next chap); maybe if he phased before he got sick he would've made it, but it wasn't meant to be :/

dude i ruined my own mood with this one UGH but it needed to be done! thanks for the support even tho i crush everyone's hearts xx