Unspoken

[intheheart]

Title: Unspoken
Rating: PG.
Summary: Gail, between choices.
AU: EPIC PIRATE AU
Notes: none.


Cecily is worried.

Her sister is fading. Gail picks at her food, speaks rarely and tersely, spends all her time staring into space. She almost never puts her daughter down, and has flatly refused to hire a wet nurse. Cecily doesn't even know what to think of that.

She thought at first that Gail was mourning her husband, but when she brought it up, Gail gave her a blank look, and then a laugh with so little humor that Cecily hasn't dared bring it up again.

She would say something, but who can she talk to? Her father already knows-- she's seen him watching Gail with troubled eyes, but every time she mentions it he won't talk. Her mother only shakes her head and says to give it time. But Cecily has given it all the time she's willing to. She loves her sister, and she's worried.

She finds Gail sitting in a window seat, her back against the frame and her baby cradled against her breasts, staring out over the soft green hills. Every so often she looks down at the sleeping infant and a soft smile crosses her mouth, the first hint of pleasure Cecily has seen on her sister's face since she arrived at the gates, infant in her arms, filthy and exhausted. But then she looks back up and it is gone, like the morning mist.

"Gail," she says, and steps forward.

There's a long pause before Gail turns her head, and when she does move it is very slowly, like someone underwater. She says nothing, only looks at Cecily, and Cecily can feel her stomach sink.

"Gail," she says again, and drags a chair over by the window, sits down beside her sister. Gail watches her do it, but still says nothing, and how in the face of that implacable silence can Cecily say anything at all?

Well, there's one subject she knows will get Gail's attention.

"The baby looks very well," she hazards, and reaches out to touch her sleeping niece's fist, curled against her chest.

Gail smiles again. "She is," she says, adjusting her hold on the baby very carefully. "She's got over her
croup. I'm grateful Father took her in too."

"You thought he'd do anything else?" Cecily asks, rather startled.

Gail shakes her head, still in that slow, entranced way. "No. Not really. He loves me." She hugs her child to herself again. "But he might have."

It isn't funny, not really, but Cecily manages a laugh anyway. "You know Ivy's father doesn't mean anything," she says. "Not really. All that matters is you. In fact," she prattles on, brightly, trying to ignore the gathering clouds in Gail's eyes, "she might be a good thing. A sort of advertisement. You know men at court always need heirs. They're looking for fertile women and you already have a child, so--"

"Ivy," Gail interrupts, her voice cold as winter, "has no father. And I'll thank you not to mention my... error in judgment again."

Cecily is stunned speechless for a moment, but she manages to gather her wits. Gail isn't a cruel person. She says this because she means it. "All right," she says. "I won't. But... you'll have to talk about it sometime. To your husband, if nothing else."

There's another long silence before Gail says, "I don't think I'll marry again."

She says it very quietly, so quietly that Cecily almost isn't sure she's heard correctly. In her heart, though, she knows she has. That's what frightens her.

"You can't be serious," she says anyway, because she doesn't want to believe it. "You have to marry. That's what women do."

"The queen isn't married," Gail says, her voice still so quiet Cecily has to strain to hear her.

But that is a rubbish argument, and she says so. "You aren't the queen, Gail! You can't do whatever you want!"

"And why not?" Gail flares so suddenly into movement and angry that Cecily actually rocks backward in her chair, as if she's been struck. "Why can't I do what I want to? I'm a widow now, not a wife, not a maiden. I'm not subject to anyone! Why can't I make my own choices?"

"Because we're women," Cecily retorts, her tone hotter because she's thought this too, sometimes. "Because that's how the world is. What's that got to do with anything?"

The baby wakes when Gail shifts her suddenly, and begins to cry, a thin, high wail. And just like that Gail settles again, the anger draining out of her and leaving only that hollowness that Cecily fears so much. "Nothing," she says, to the baby, jogging her gently in her arms. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

Cecily changes to the window seat, beside her sister's legs. "Gail," she says, insistently. "You aren't happy. What's wrong? You're home, you're safe. What more could you want?"

"She's tired," Gail says, and begins to rock the child back and forth, but her hands are trembling on the baby's body. Cecily can see the tension in them, the hollows and knuckles sharp and prominent.

She takes the child from her sister's arms, bouncing her niece up and down, and nods to acknowledge Gail's grateful look. But she won't let this go. She can't. There's something bothering her sister, and she will not gloss it over and ignore it. "Gail. What's wrong?"

Gail says nothing, watching the child in Cecily's arms.

"Gail," Cecily says, thoroughly exasperated.

"She could have had a father," Gail says, suddenly. "Ivy. If I'd made a different choice. If he had. If..." She trails off, and turns to look out the window again.

"What?" Cecily straightens up, startling the infant into another spate of tears. "Gail, what? You mean your... was there someone else?"

A faint smile curls the corner of Gail's mouth. "It doesn't matter," she says. "We both made our choices. I chose Ivy and he chose..." She pauses, shrugs. "He chose. It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," Cecily says, absently soothing the baby. "I want to know everything. Where did you meet him? How..."

"Cecily," Gail says. Her voice is soft, but absolute. "I don't want to talk about it. But thank you for trying."

"But..."

"No." She gets up, takes her daughter from Cecily's arms, and walks away, humming softly to the baby.

Cecily stays sitting in the window, speechless.