@andi

Overall Giselle was excited but underneath she was very much scared and panicking. It wasn’t just her baby’s life she had to worry about but the father of her baby too. The latter was the harder part given that she had no idea what Al was doing of where he was other than him being in America but that country itself was so big and there were so many possibilities. She knew she had to keep calm and always think in a positive frame of mind as it would impact on their baby but given that work was somewhat busy and everyone was getting ready for Christmas it was not as easy as some might suspect. She just took each day as it came as she figured that was the best approach. The witch didn’t want to rely on her twin to much. She knew that he had the best intentions at heart but he was the baby’s uncle, the person who had to step up was really Alistair but he was not around.

Gisele only hoped that come February when their baby was due he would come back but maybe even that was asking too much. He would have missed close to eight months of her pregnancy and those eight months that no one could bring back no matter if they had the best time turner or not. She knew it was only a matter of time before he did return and she had to do the hard work by way getting things ready for their son’s arrival. The moment she had found out they were having a son she wanted nothing more than to see Alistair’s face and see his reaction or see him going overboard by buying everything for the boy. Instead she was seeing her brother her excited about meeting his nephew. It was still exciting but it was not the same as she imagined Alistairs’ face would look.

The blonde haired witch had made her way up to the maternity ward, it was a trip she was familiar in taking now. She just wished she had company each time but alas she didn’t and it was heartbreaking, if she was honest. But Gisele was not going to be dramatic with this. Marlin knows that Veela coped enough flack for being dramatic. She had given her name at the counter to only find out that her usual healer was not in today. She rubbed her temple as she took a seat, the nurse had told her that her healer had been called overseas for a family emergency. It seemed that family emergencies seemed to follow her around by the looks of things. Giselle sat back in her seat and waited, another thing she seemed to be doing plenty of these days.
   

Sometimes It Sneaks Up On You

Outfit

She was finally starting to find a routine, and Andromeda thought that it was helping. Having the boys here with her every day was a crutch, and she knew it, but she also knew that if she was going to remain calm all day, that if she wasn’t going to just worry over them the entire time, having them here, in her office, was what was best. Faye was with them, and her assistant knew to have her paged if they started to fuss, so it wasn’t like she left them totally unattended. But it wasn’t exactly common place to have your infants in your office with you. That was part of the perks of being her though. She got to have them with her as much as possible, and that was something that she greatly appreciated. Part of her routine though, had come to include popping in on each floor throughout the day and making sure that things were running smoothly. There were nurses and young healers-in-training running around taking care of everything and everyone, and they were all seemingly doing just fine. Varying her pattern of which floor she went to first each day kept them on their toes, or so she liked to think. She knew that that probably only varied her routine. They should have been ready to see her at any point in the day, and not have to worry about it. That was how the hospital should run. But there wasn’t always time for things like that. Things came up. That was just how their lives worked.

If she hadn’t have come up here today though, she might not have known that one of her healers had had an emergency until she had gotten back to her desk. It wasn’t something that she actually thought that they needed to come and find her for, she understood the healer leaving, and someone else sending a note up to her office. As long as they had told their direct supervisor it was fine. It was only her surgeons that she wanted a better handle on than that. And she thought that they were all aware that they needed to report directly to her. She was Director of this hospital, and the Head of the Surgical Department. They all had their specialties though, there was no doubt about that. They all had something that they had mastered over the years, and Andromeda had always been drawn to babies. That was just who she was. She had loved babies for as long as she could remember, and she had experienced her share of heartbreak over the years in regard to them. She had saved more than she could count. She had lost more than she was willing to remember… She had lost three before they were even born. She had lost one twenty-five years after she was born. And Andromeda thought that she had lost yet another eighteen years after she had been handed him and asked to protect him, to take care of him. She had failed five times. And Teddy was still alive, but that didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t make her worry any less about failing her sons. About failing Rodolphus. Because this time they weren’t just her sons. They were his too.

“Director!” Andromeda looked around at the sound of her name and she smiled at the nurse that had called it. “Yes?” She knew that the nurses were just as important in this hospital as the healers were, and if she ever needed something, couldn’t find something, wanted to know exactly what was going on with a patient, it wasn’t the healer that she asked. It was the nurse. They were just better at that sort of thing. “We have a healer out, and not all of their patients got rescheduled and everyone else is busy… And I know…” Andromeda raised her hand gently. She didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. “Where’s the chart?” The nurse in front of her seemed to visibly relax when she asked, and the other woman held it out to her. “Thank you.” Taking it from her she flipped through it as she headed towards the waiting room of the Maternity Ward. She didn’t know the name on the chart, and so she thought that she was going to have to really just breathe… And this was going to be fine. She could do this. It was a routine check-up, she had done this for years. Andromeda knew that she was going to be fine, she just knew what it was that the nurse had been going to say, and she didn’t need to psych herself out. Putting on a prim and proper smile she tucked her loose hair behind her ear as she looked out across the room. “Giselle?” Andromeda didn’t know if the girl was going to know who she was or not, she didn’t know her, but that didn’t mean anything really. Either way she was going to introduce herself, as soon as she knew exactly whom it was she was speaking to.

The excitement of being pregnant and becoming a mother had not lasted that long for Giselle unfortunately. She of course had been excited to tell Alistair when she had found out but then the man had rushed off to the states to look after his sick mother. She could not blame him really. He was an only child and she was partly aware of how much pressure there was on people like that. She was on of three and even then she would not hesitate in rushing back to France to look after her parents. It was just some that parents did should they have a healthy relationship with their parents. Both her and Al did with their parents and she had fully supported him with going back. She had only wished she had heard from him more while he had been away.Giselle didn’t think it was too much ask for that. After all she had sent him all the scans to date even pictures of the nursery she had worked on with her twin.

Maybe Alistair had changed his mind about being involved in their child’s life. Giselle was going to be devastated if that was the case. She had a million questions running through her head as it was and she really didn’t know how she would cope when it came to raising a child on her own if she was going to end up doing that. She really couldn’t believe that Alistair would do that to her. Was he that kind of man? Sure he had his own demons and issues but who didn’t? Having her child without their father there was the last thing she wanted but maybe she would have to accept that was how it was going to be. She knew that it would be hard and their son would have his own questions and thing it was their fault to, even if she tried to convince him otherwise when he was older. Giselle had not even planned on dating anyone else past Alistair. She was not sure if she wanted to be with any other man really. Her main focus now was her baby and giving him everything and anything he could want or need. But there things she could not give him and didn't think it was right for her brother to have to give his nephew one or one bonding time. This was something a father should do.

She had heard talk of him returning and she didn’t want to face him. If he was not bothering to contact her then she didn’t believe it was her responsibility to see him. She had reached out enough times while he had been afforded and she had got barely anything in return. Giselle tried not to appear to upset as she thought about all this while sat waiting for her name to be called. She didn’t want the healer to question her private life, she just wanted to make sure her son was healthy. Hearing her name she turned her head and smiled politely at a well dressed healer as she got to her feet. ”Bonjour...I am Gisele” she smiled as she approached the older woman. She followed the woman into the room and took a seat as she put her bag beside her.

Figuring out this whole situation was something that she was working on. Bits and pieces of all of it were finding their way into her life now, and she thought that so long as things were running smoothly, she wasn't going to disrupt them. Not now. There were things that she wanted to do, things that she wanted to look into, to talk about, but those were things that were going to have to be discussed with Rodolphus, round and around in circles she was sure, before they got anywhere with that. Andromeda thought that she was going to have to get through each day as it came. That was how she was functioning these days. Just one day at a time. Because there were a million things that could up and go wrong on any given day, and she didn't know if there were things that were going get better, or if this was just the new normal. Nothing about this felt normal, not yet, and she thought that she would have been more comfortable living a 'normal' life as a housewife right now than she was trying to get it through her head to go back into a surgical suite. That was the last thing that she wanted to do, she had lost the last mother that she had delivered for, and there were certain things that you just couldn't come back from. There was a reason that they didn't let healers treat family, and though legally she hadn't been, Blair had been family. Getting past that was something that she hadn't quite done yet. She hadn't made it over that hurdle, even now. Even after everything.

She would get there, or she wouldn't, and Andromeda knew that it had been months already, but she kept telling herself that time would be the only thing that could fix this. That time healed all pain. And she wasn't sure if she was starting to believe her own lie, or if things really were easier to just set aside sometimes? Because it was never easy. There were things that were never far from her thoughts. There were things that she didn't quite know how to handle, or how she was going to handle. Every milestone that they hit. Every time that Roarke would smile up at her, or laugh, or Merlin forbid the first time he did something like sit up, roll over, crawl. She was going to have a hard time with that. She was going to have to figure out how to handle that. How to cope with everything that Blair should have been there for, with everything that she was missing. Because there was so much that she was missing. Andromeda knew that she was living for both of them now, in some strange way. Blair had died, saving her, and she was raising Roarke and Arcturus side by side. They were brothers, and she could do this. She could pull it together, she could pull her life together, she could pull her family back together, and they would go on. They would be stronger, smarter, and she would do so without really having to think about it. They were going to beat this, she was going to beat this. She had to.

Andromeda knew that getting through this one appointment wouldn't be the end of her, but she thought that it was going to be more difficult than it should have been. She should have just been able to do this the same way that she had done it for years. This was routine, this was like riding a broomstick. It would just come back naturally. When the woman answered her Andromeda noted that it had been in French first. "Bonjour." Showing her through to the other room she let her walk in ahead of her and set her things down before she spoke again, "Je m'appelle Andromeda Lestrange. Préféreriez-vous le français?" It wasn't indicated in her chart at all, but if the woman preferred French, that was something that Andromeda could accommodate. There were healers throughout the hospital that spoke a multitude of languages, and had the woman greeted her in Italian, or Norwegian, or some other language she didn't know she would have been at a loss, but French… French she could handle.

Gisele had to believe she could do this, she now had to bring up her child on her own. Going to St Mungo’s on her own was the easy part, really given that she had been doing so since her first scan. Alistair had never been there from the start and she had fooled herself into thinking he wanted to be part of their child's life. Giselle understood perfectly that he wanted to go and look after her mum. She knew being an only child that they felt the need to look after their parents when they grew old or fell sick. There was often no one else to do that. Of course Alistair could have paid for an at-home nurse he had the means to afford such a service but he had not even considered it. This just left Giselle alone. Her twin did not fill th void in the same way that Al would and she realised that early on. She was so glad to have her brother by her side but at the same time she didn’t want to burden him. He was single and he should not be tied down with a child that was not his, he should have not to step up where Alistair failed to do so.

She knew that her brother had felt cheated by Alistair just as much as she did and that he wanted to payback the man for what he had done to her. Ideally Giselle would have been on board with Rafferty exacting some kind of punishment on him but she had seen too much violence taking place recently and she knew it was best to keep her brother far away from Alistair. If she had come to learn that he was back in the UK, she would be keeping that information from Rafferty to avoid trouble. His efforts to hex Alistair would be wasted as fas Gisele was concerned anyway.

Reflecting on their time together Giselle wondered if there was some kind of warning sign between her and Al that could have told that this would happen when if she was to fall pregnant, but there didn’t appear to be one. She Knew of what had happened with his ex and what had followed when he found out that the child was not his but this baby was a hundred percent his but still that had not deterred him from making his way across the Atlantic and barely communicating with her.

If she wanted to get upset about it all, she couldn’t, she knew the healer would remind her to keep calm and to remain poised at all times and to be relaxed. However she was about to bring her child into this world, on her own. She knew many women did it regularly and had been doing it for years and she bowed down to how strong and determined there were. But even with her being part Veela she was still doubting her ability.

Giselle offered the woman a small smile but it may not be enough to convince her that she was fairing well. She sat down and her smile grew as she was addressed in French. It was kind of the older woman to speak her native tongue and it was rarely heard at St Mungo’s (as far as Giselle was aware). ”Oui s'il vous plaît” she smiled as she ran her hand over the sheet that was wrapped around the bed. ”Actually, one minute... I speak English for work, so I’m comfortable with that too “ She knew the woman was giving her the chance to speak in French throughout the appointment and Giselle appreciated it but they were in England where they spoke English and the Blonde haired witch thought it was more appropriate. ”He’s moving around a lot...is that normal?” she questioned as she rested her hand on her stomach and bit her lip.

If she was going to make it through being here, through holding it together while she was in the hospital, Andromeda had to stay focused. She had to focus on what was right in front of her. On what it was that she needed to do, to stay on the right track. Because things were going to go one way or the other right now, and she didn't think that she could live with herself for all that much longer if they went south. She thought that she had lost too much. That there had been too many things go wrong for all of this to just work itself out easy. Andromeda knew better than to think that they were going to be that simple. She thought that they were going to have to work at it. That she was going to have to work at it. Because if there was one thing that she had learned from all of this. It was that holding herself together, she was on her own for. There was no one else that she could rely on to pull her back together, and she thought that it was going to have to be her. She was going to have to save herself. The question was how?

Because she knew how. She knew what it was that she wanted to do. She knew what it was that she needed to do, but all in all, she wasn't sure that she knew exactly how to get there. There were things that it was going to change. There were things that were going to change everything if she did what she thought that she wanted to do. Andromeda knew that she couldn't make a decision like that on her own. She didn't get to just make decisions on her own anymore. Because she wasn't unwed. She wasn't a widow anymore. She wasn't even a divorcee. She was a wife. And her husband was someone that she had enough respect for, that she wasn't going to even attempt to walk all over him. She knew better than that. Rodolphus was different that either of her previous husbands had been. Because if she was going to really be honest with herself, she thought that she was going to have to admit that they hadn't known what to do with her.

She was strong, and she knew it. Andromeda knew there was power behind her name, she knew that she could be powerful, and influential, and that she could change the world around them if she wanted to. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she had what it took to save herself. It was just a matter of actually doing it. Because she knew that she wasn't whole here anymore. She knew that there were things that they were going to have to try and understand, things that they were going to have to work through if she was going to be whole. And she didn't think that she wanted to do that. She would rather walk away. She would rather do something that she knew was going to work, than put herself through the hell of trying to force something that was never going to be the same. Because dying had changed everything. And she wasn't the same witch that she had been before. She couldn't be, and she thought that that was okay.

No one expected her to be the same. No one expected her to be completely unchanged, and Andromeda thought that it might be about time that she brought up what was really on her mind. What she really wanted to do. Something that had always been there, an idea. A spark that had caught fire now, and she thought that her ambitions were bound to start showing through soon enough… For the moment though, she needed to focus on what was right in front of her, and right in front of her, was this girl. She didn't need whatever was going on in Andromeda's head to distract her. She just needed someone to take care of her. "English it is then." Her smile was soft, and warm. She had been doing this long enough that she could tell that the girl was nervous, but she didn't think that there was any real reason to be. "That's alright, there are about ten weeks, between the eighteen and twenty-eight-week marks, where you'll think you're feeling everything. Is it significantly more than you've been experiencing thus far?" There were always outside stimulants that could cause the changes too, and Andromeda thought that they needed to rule out everything before just assuming that things were completely normal.

When Giselle had found out she was pregnant, it had been a little before Al had proposed to her. Looking back now after everything that had happened she knew that was likely the reason why he had asked her to marry him. Regardless, they could have had the perfect family together. Instead she was bringing their baby into the world as a single mother. It was not going to be easy and she really thought the world of single mothers as it was. She had seen many of them come into KA designs and she saw them doing the best they could. She only hoped now that her life would resemble those of her single mother clients, she could be as good as them. She was scared and nervous and worried. It was just a jack-in-the-box when it came to emotions as she didn’t know which one would rear its head on any day. She had tried her best so far to keep a brave face, especially when it came to her work. She had to be brave and she had to be positive. But at times those two words just felt like words. She wanted to be the best mother she could be for her son but how could she be that when she had to be a father to him too?

She wasn’t even sure how to be a father. Sure she could go of the example of her father because in (biased) opinion he was an amazing father and he still was to this day. Even if her parents lived in France and she in England, they still spoke a few times a week and checked in on her and. In return she and Rafferty made sure to speak to their older brother from time to time and while going to see him was out of the question for Giselle at the moment, it was okay for Rafferty and he travelled to France at times. The witch would to do the same but she would definitely wait until her son was a few months old.

She was looking forward to her mum coming over when it came time for her baby to be born. She would also feel guilty because she knew her mum had her things to attend to at home but it was just customary in their family that the grandmother would stay with the new mother for a few weeks when their baby was born. Giselle was glad for the help. After all she would need all the help she could get. She had not been around too many babies herself. Claude didn’t have any children yet so she could not practice with a niece or nephew. The same went with her twin. She had a few friends. Alistair was not going to be in the baby’s life. The latter was something she was fine with. As far as she was concerned not keeping in touch with her and not asking on the progress of her pregnancy was a good enough reason to not welcome him into their son’s life.

Giselle looked up to the woman knowing that this appointment would be conducted in English. She appreciated her asking which language she preferred. It was welcome but she didn’t want to be treated any differently. She already got enough attention as it was for being part Veela. ”No nothing else, his moving around makes it awkward to sleep and there is the back pain but I know it all comes with being pregnant” she smiled a little.

This had used to be her sanctuary. The Hospital was the one place that she had known that she could go, and everything was going to make sense. She could lose herself in her work, and by the time that she went home, everything would have sorted itself out. Now the hospital was the last place that she wanted to be. The only place that she wanted to be most days was their nursery. She just wanted to be with the boys. She wanted to be around them, close to them. They had become her sanctuary and she knew why. She knew why she wanted to be around them more than she wanted to be anywhere else. Because when she was with them, she knew that Blair was there too. It had been years, decades really, since Andromeda had gotten a tattoo, but she knew that eventually she would get another one. That there would be a mark on her body, that was tribute to the woman that she lived for. Because she knew that she was both now. She knew that she owed that to Blair. She owed her raising their son, and she owed her the tribute. Something subtle. Something that wasn't going to mean anything to anyone else, but that meant something to her.

Perhaps it would take years for her to decide on what it would mean. What the symbol should be, but she would add her to her collection of ink. The tattoo on the back of her neck was for herself alone. The constellation that she was named after. Inked in perfect stars on the back of her neck. The Gaelic words, and symbols on her ribs, and between her breasts, were for Rodolphus. Words that she had had added to her body when he had been sent to Azkaban. Words that she had never explained to anyone, because of those that had seen them, only Ted had ever asked, and she had told him a partial lie. She had told him it was Gaelic, and that it was as close to a prayer as she had come in years. And that was true. What she hadn't told him was that it was a prayer for someone else… That it was a prayer for Rodolphus… That would have been a shock, she was sure. To have found out via her tattoo that she had had an affair. That she was in love with her sister's husband.

Only he wasn't her sister's husband anymore. He was hers. For the first time in her life, Andromeda was truly loyal to the man that she was supposed to be. She was loyal to him, because she had always wanted to be. She had been nineteen when she had fallen in love with him, and now here they were, forty-six years later, and she had finally married him. She had his name, she had borne him a son. She was a Lestrange. Finally. Wife to the brother that she should have married all along. They should have been together from the start, and she had to wonder how in the world everything would have been different. Andromeda didn't know if she believed in fate, or destiny, but she thought that if she really thought about it, she could see how one little decision, would have changed the course of their lives. The course of fate… And that was the same for everyone. They all had their fate, but unlike some people, she didn't think that it was written in the stars. The stars though, she did believe in. And the words written down her spine said as much, 'without the darkness, you cannot see the stars'.

She thought that people would have been surprised by the fact that she was tattooed to begin with, but she rather liked them. They were all a part of her. They were all something that she had needed when she had done it. One at eighteen. One at twenty-eight, and one at forty-five. She had needed all of them, and she thought that she needed the additions that she was planning on now. The intricate A and R that she had drawn in her sketchbook, and whatever she chose to represent Blair. "It does." She nodded gently to the young woman. "Have you seen him yet?" She didn't know how many of the healers were actually using her charm or not. She had been out of practice in the maternity ward for general patients for a while, and she knew that Healer Prewett didn't exactly care for the things that Andromeda had invented. It was still always nice for the expectant mothers to actually get to see their baby before they arrived. She had spent hours casting the spell over herself before Arcturus had arrived after all.

Sometimes Gisele questioned if she was doing the right thing. But she had no other choice. She would never allow Alistair to see their son or have any involvement in his life and that went as far as providing monetary support for their child. She knew that people would question her on that but she was doing that for the benefit of her son. While he may share DNA with the wizard, she would only refer to him as her son because she was going to step up and play both parents to their child. She wasn’t entirely sure how she would do that but she knew she would do it somehow. The witch was that confident. Gisele just had to believe in herself. That was not normally a big ask but her emotions had been so rattled lately that she may actually doubt herself for the first time in her life.

When she had lost Martin, she had wondered if she would ever get over it and past it. It was not a question of forgetting or remembering their good times because she never forget her former fiancé. She had considered him to be the love of her life. She had lost him the most tragic way. Betrayal was sadly all to common in the magical world and targeting an Auror-in-Training was really unforgivable. She would unlikely tell her son about Martin. He would mean nothing to him. Though, if for some reason she moved back to France and raised her son there and he went on to attend Beauxbatons then she may consider it.

It was very premature for her to be thinking about such things but it was just one of many things she was thinking of. Gisele knew that she could rely on her family to help her and also her friends but the witch would still feel bad for making them help her. Even if when the baby was born and she had asked her twin to babysit she would feel guilty. She had heard that ‘mother’s guilt’ was a real thing. No one would fault her for wanting a few hours to rest or to go out and get shopping done but the witch would still worry that people would see her as a bad mother. It was not true but still. She didn’t know who to go for help. Was there a healer that could help her? Did they not only look after their patients medical needs and not counselling needs.

The witch could ask this older healer but this was the first time she had seen her and the last time possibly, given that her normal healer could be here for her next appointment. She would keep her thoughts internal for now. She smiled politely at the woman and was grateful that she had been prepared to conduct the appointment in French. She wasn’t sure that the reverse would happen in a French hospital. ”I have seen him before, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him again, if that is okay?” she looked at the older woman for her response. The first time she had seen her son had been a joyous moment and she knew time time would be much time same. ”Maybe it would give me inspiration for his name” Giselle joked.