Breakdown One Shots

Say Hello

Diana hears the gentle hum of a familiar song. It crackles over the radio of the baby monitor on her side of the bed. Bella should be comfortably asleep by now, or at least until she wakes to scream at some point in the middle of the night.

She must have missed it, the graceful image of the love of her life walking into the next room to comfort their only daughter. Either that or they were restless. Diana sighed softly into the covers. She doesn't want to move, but figures for the sake of her sanity she should go join the party and see how Bella is doing.

With a soft yawn, Diana finds her voice adding to the hum, although it can't be heard from there. She starts to push off the bed with a quiet groan. Squeezing her eyes tight, the monitor pops beside her ear. When they open, the moonlight catches her face and illuminates the room.

She can see her own alarm clock, 2:30 am on the analog. It could be worse. The sound starts to get a little shakey and so she lightly taps it till the baby monitor resumes the normal humming.

Then she rolls over, her arm stretching out and feeling a figure beside her.

Diana's eyes shoot open wider than saucers and she is confronted with the soft shape of her wife, Jill, cuddled into the blankets beside her. Diana begins to panic. If it's not her wife humming to their infant, than who.

She shakes her wife's shoulders wildly, leaning over her completely.

"Jill!" She whisper shouts. "Jill! Jill get up! There's someone in the house!"

Her wife doesn't move. She's breathing, grumpy as always in her sleep, but not reacting to her wife. Jill is usually a light sleeper.

With no time to waste, Diana knows she has no choice but to confront whoever is in the next room.

The larger woman picks up a baseball bat from beside the bed, she doesn't have enough time to dive for her wife's government issue pistol.

She holds it up and quietly opens the door of her bedroom with one last look at her wife who still has not moved.

The humming becomes louder as she begins to walk down the hall. There's a soft light emenating from her daughter's room. The door is wide open but there's no shadow on the floor.

Diana stays close to the wall, avoiding the floor boards she knows are creaky. Her grip gets tighter, she wishes she had her wife's backup. She gets closer to the door and freezes just for a moment.

"Mama and me and the devil makes three-"

The voice sings softly.

Diana throws herself through the open doorway and is about to swing wildly when she sees the figure before her.

Heart still racing, she drops the baseball bat and grabs her chest.

"Holy shit Maw Maw, you almost gave me an asthma attack."

Diana's grandmother stood in the room. She cradled Bella in her thin, tan arms. She looks as frail and old as ever. As if a light breeze would disintegrate her, or drag her away like a whisp in the wind.

Her grandmother turns her gaze up rather slowly. Her singing stopped, she looked over the frame of her grandchild. Maw Maw continued to rock Bella back and forth slowly.

"You look cold Daniel, do you need a jacket?"

"It's Diana Maw Maw" she sighed. "I'm fine thank you."

"Right, right."

She'd never remember. It wasn't her fault.

Diana smiled. Her grandmother returned her gaze to the small child who looked up and giggled. The hazy light shined down on Bella's face. She was so small.

"Can I see her?" Diana asked her grandmother.

She nodded softly before holding out the child. Diana was careful. She walked closer and waited for her grandmother to gently set Bella in her arms. Maw Maw's hands slide right through Diana's.

Diana lightly bounced her daughter with a smile. Bella cooed and smiled back.

"You see that my little dove" Diana said, pointing at her grandmother. "That's your great Maw Maw Belle. You were named after her."

Bella baby babbled at the other woman. Grandma began to glow just a little brighter. The hazy blue light that surrounded her made her slightly more translucent than before.

"It was nice of you to come say hi Maw Maw. It's been a while."

Diana looked up at the older woman who seemed to get older the longer she stood there.

"About 10 years since a saw you last" Maw Maw said with a rasp in her throat. "That moonlight wedding was so nice. Oh! An uncle Rudy was a joy to be around."

A grimace passed Diana's face when her sweet old grandmother mentioned Great-Great Uncle Rudy.

"There's a reason he went to hell Maw Maw" she reminded.

Maw Maw waved off the comment with a gesture and a click of her tongue. "Oh boo. Some people just know how to have fun."

Diana chuckled softly. She watched Maw Maw's gaze slide off her shoulder to look behind her. Diana followed the gaze and turned around to see her wife standing in the doorway with the black standard issue in her hand.

"Hey honey. Sorry, Maw Maw just stopped by for a visit."

Jill paused with eyes still bleary from sleep. She groaned for a moment and flicked the safety back on before putting the weapon on the table next to the door.

"Hi Maw Maw."

"Jill dear!"

The softer woman walked into the room and rested her head on her wife's shoulder. She looked over their daughter's face and blinked a few times.

"Dee, sweetheart. Love and light of my life?"

"Yes, my lovely morning person?"

Diana turned to kiss her wife's forehead.

"I think we need to get Bella back to sleep."

There was a moment of pause. Diana looked up at her grandmother who nodded a form of half hearted agreement.

"Thank you for dropping by Maw Maw" Jill says through a yawn.

Diana's grandmother dips her head gracefully before then ushering Jill into a hug... both standing there without moving much since they could not actually touch through the veil.

"Oh! Your mother says hi as well dear."

"Thank you. Tell her she's free to come by anytime. As are you."

"Oh, you know your mother, Jill. She didn't like no damn spirits in her house, she idn't gonna be no damn spirit in someone else's."

The three laughed and Bella babbled again softly. After a few more goodbyes that lasted close to thirty minutes, the southern hospitality had been all used up.

Diana waved with half a hand and Maw Maw dissappeared in a beautiful trickle of light. The women watched her go before Bella made a soft noise.

The two look down, they see Bella slowly settle into her mother's arms and close her eyes.

"If she falls asleep this easy, maybe we need to have family over more often" Jill notes behind yet another yawn.

"Alright. Then next time I'll make the effort to call your Great-Great-Great Aunt Lizil."

Jill huffed and carefully took Bella into her arms to place the baby back in her crib.

"Only if you're willing to hear her tell you AGAIN, how she lied her way into the military and-"

"Killed hitler with a flat iron? Or was it Stalin with a sniper rifle?"

Jill laughs as she looks at her daughter.

"She changes the story every time" she sighs.

The two smiled in silence for a moment before Diana took her wife's hand (and then the baseball bat.)

"Let's go to bed" she whispered.

Jill yawned one more time to make her view clear.

"Please?"