a nice thought (max x liesel one shots)

03

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She thinks: here is the man who is my whole world.

you were my backbone when
my body ached with weariness;
you were my hometown when
my heart was filled with loneliness;

-

The baby in her arms is blond-haired and red-faced, and it fleetingly reminds her of Rudy. Maybe it's the color palette – it brings back memories of a flustered twelve-year-olds after a thievery gone wrong, or a particularly thorough beating from the nun. But his eyes were different – sparkling with anger or defiance or impudence, while the baby's eyes are a glossy blue, swollen with tears.

"There," Liesel says calmly, marking another small victory at managing to quiet the child before it wakes all the others. "We wouldn't want to piss off your friends, would we?"

Her English is still lousy at its best, but thankfully, proper grammar is not a vital requirement when it comes to coddling toddlers.

(The truth is, if someone told Liesel ten years ago that she would move to Australia and work as a collective babysitter, she would have called them a name that would have made Rosa Hubermann proud.)

She rewards the baby with a milk bottle, and it starts to suckle at it greedily. She looks to the small label in the corner of the crib – James – of course it would be James. So far every baby James she's made acquaintance with has had quite a pair of lungs.

"Liesel." There is a soft voice calling to her from the doorway; it belongs to Mary, the kindergarten mistress. She is a little over forty, with dirty blond hair and kind eyes. Liesel owes her a lot, she supposes – for employing her without a second glance at her worn clothing or the terrible English, for one – or for actually growing to like her.

"Could you close up? It's my daughter's birthday and I have yet to collect the cake before they close the bakery." She smiles sheepishly at her, angel-like goodness emanating from her features. "It's Friday, so they should pick them all up by the end of the hour anyway. Will you be alright?"

Liesel nods, her lips curving into a thin smile. She'll be late for dinner, she realizes with a pang.

The sky is dark grey when the last parent comes for their child. They all look the same – the parents, (it's a given with the babies) – in suits or work clothes, tiredness gathered around their eyes like dust. This is what life after the war is, she thinks, even here, at the very edge of the world.

She closes the door behind her, and steps into the early evening chill. Her wristwatch reads eight o'clock and she stifles a sigh.

She doesn't make it very far, when a female voice calls for her – she still has to remind herself that yes, it's actually her  the woman means, that that's her name – and grudgingly turns around, cigarette halfway to her mouth.

"I just wanted to say thank you, I guess," the woman says, balancing a sleeping kid at her hip. At a closer look Liesel recognizes it to be the blond-haired baby James. That screaming little bugger. "You manage to calm him down somehow; I never have such luck." She smiles tightly, with shame. It must be hard, Liesel muses, to wring yourself out day by day to earn enough it takes to keep a roof over your head, and then come back home, where your child thinks you a stranger.

"He likes the stars," she offers, raising her cigarette-less hand up to illustrate what her words can't. (She hates it, hates not being able to communicate, hates the way the right words run away from her as if she were their enemy.) "The little paper stars that hang from the ceiling. He likes to play with them. It calms him." She even manages a small smile. "You should probably try it, to get some peace."