A Twist In Time

Will I Love Him?

As the weeks went on and Merry's pregnancy continued and she grew, she got worse. She had always been a pale girl, but now, she was deathly pale and she looked frail.

Polly was worried about her. I didn't like seeing the look on Polly's face when she tended to Merry. It was like she was reliving something from her past and I just got a sense that something bad had happened to her.

As each day went by, I was growing closer and closer to the day that I was going to lose Merry.

"Did I die in the other time?" she asked, breaking me from my thoughts as I sat opposite her in the living room.

I let my eyes drift to her and tightened my grip on my teacup. We didn't speak about her life from the future. It was an unspoken rule. I didn't want to change things, but I guess, considering we'd gone back in time and considering I couldn't find a way to change that, to get us back to her time, I had already changed things.

I'd inserted myself into Polly's life, into the Shelby's life. Hadn't I already changed the future?

"You did. After you had Tom at the orphanage, you had enough time to name him and then you passed away." I didn't feel like keeping it from her. She knew. I could see from her face that she knew.

"Was it because of my heart?"

"I think it might have been. You lived a worse life leading up to Tom's birth. You split from Riddle Sr. and were wandering the streets of London for months before going to an orphanage when you went into labour. A lot of people from my time say you died of a broken heart," I said, moving over to her and tucking a blanket around her frail body.

Even in her sickness, she had this glow about her. It made me angry that Tom still wouldn't have a mother even though the situation had changed. Merry was living a better life than she ever had but she was still going to die after giving birth.

Even magic couldn't save her.

I'd gone to St Mungo's in the hope they'd be able to save Merry, but they couldn't. There was nothing to be done. They could give her a potion that would give her the strength to go to full term without complications but the strain of labour would eventually kill her.

"Merry, I want to do something before you leave us." I didn't want to say the words. The more I said them, the more it made it real.

If I was stuck in this era, stuck in 1916 having to live in the past, I wouldn't want to do it without Merry. I wanted to do something for baby Tom. He'd never gotten to know his mother in his timeline and as it was going now, he'd never get to know her in this timeline either.

There were no photographs of her for him to look at and any questions he had were never answered. I wanted to be able to give him all of that.

"Can you write a letter to Tom? Let him know how much you love him? Tell him what he means to you and that you didn't want to leave him?" I didn't want to tell her that I needed the letter just as much as the baby would.

"I've gotten a camera and I want to take a couple of pictures of us before too." I wanted a reminder of her in our house. She had marked my life more than I thought and I never wanted to forget her. "I want Tom to see you when he grows."

"I will." She paused as she shifted in her seat and gave me a gentle smile. "As long as you take a picture and send it to Tommy."

My eyes widened at the thought. I was not going to send a picture to Tommy. That was the sort of thing you did if you were sweethearts and I was most definitely not Tommy's sweetheart.

"Of course," I lied, squeezing her hand as I rose and went to the kitchen where Polly was giving the children breakfast. They were all dressed nice, part of my plan. I wanted to do a family photo for John and thought Arthur and Tommy would also enjoy seeing their family in tough times. "She's agreed to the photographs." Polly nodded and handed Edward off to Ada, who grimaced as the two-year-old frowned at her.