Little Ones [A Vikklan, Poofless and Merome Fanfiction]

↞Chapter 8↠

Mitch's P.O.V.

I didn't manage to sleep a lot over the weeks I had Hazel home. She cried and cried and cried to the point I didn't think I was going to be able to handle it anymore- I was used to sleeping, being able to nap undisturbed whenever I felt like, and it took me forever to fall asleep so I did not cope well with sleep in two to three hour bursts. I almost had to stop recording completely to take care of her, uploading videos I did manage to record in between- but even my audience knew something was up.

It was only when she was about 3 and a half weeks old that she finally settled in, sleeping for slightly longer periods of time, drinking her bottles on a routine, allowing me to take some time to breathe. While she slept during the day I recorded, baby monitor on my desk so I could check on her, or slept myself. I tried to eat but I often couldn't, not hungry at all. Since her birth it seemed my appetite had disappeared almost completely, but I didn't think much of it. I took her to the doctor for her for her first shots when she turned a month old, and everything seemed to be going well- well, well enough considering my mental state.

I was in an awful mental state. The lack of sleep, the lack of food, the responsibility of caring for my daughter and working all on my own were weighing heavily on me, and it was to the point I could hardly get up in the morning. I let her cry for 5 minutes when she awoke in the night, too tired and too numb to get up and feed her. I supposed it was called postpartum depression but again, I was too numb to really realise that. I was too numb and too tired to do anything that actually, but I powered through what I had to do each day with a simple routine that I could stick to with ease.

It was just... I was so scared. What had happened to me was so raw in my mind, only 10 months earlier, and she was the result of that trauma. I supposed I had some sort of apprehension towards her because of that, she looked nothing like my attacker, she was basically me in a miniature form, but that didn't mean I didn't look at her and remember that awful night. Because I did. And because of that, I considered myself damaged. Damaged goods, broken.

My routine honestly fell apart after that first month, and it scared me. I was almost unable to care for Hazel because of it- I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't eat, I couldn't record. I was barely able to feed her when she cried for it and that only made her cry more, shattering me further. Her cry often became frantic, high pitched and scared, when I left her for too long- she thought I was abandoning her, leaving her to scream and cry on her own. I wasn't, I was in the next room lying on my bed with no energy to get up. Listening to her cry, completely numb.

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Jerome called me, talking for the first time in weeks, when Hazel was a little over 3 weeks old. My routine hadn't quite fallen apart but this was before she was sleeping better, and I was exhausted. I knew I looked awful, in between trying to look after her, myself, my health and my career, and the look on his face said enough- not that he could say anything, because he looked drawn, exhausted and tired as well. I managed to get him not to come around, but he still insisted on near daily calls, strange considering we hadn't actually talked since Hazel's birth. He was worried about me and I almost blurted out the fact that she existed right then and there- but I didn't. I couldn't. Not yet.

"You're going to go and have a nap, right?" He said quietly, head resting in his hands. I nodded.

"Yeah, I am. It's just... I'm worried about getting videos out, I don't have any recorded or edited, I don't-"

"Don't worry about it Mitch." He interrupted me. "It's okay. They won't mind if you miss a couple of days. Take some time to look after yourself, breathe. Alright?"

I managed to nod- "alright."

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Hazel was asleep in my arms. I was sitting on my couch, television playing but I was paying no attention to it. My body was a mess, my mind was spinning and I felt like I simply couldn't breathe- the world was closing in around me.

I traced my finger across her face, just as I had done when she was born. God, even in a month and a bit she had changed so much. When she was awake she had these beautiful hazel eyes, basically a carbon copy of my own, and it surprised me just how much she looked like me. I was glad, partly because it didn't remind me every second of every day what had happened to me. I shuddered.

Did I tell my family? Did I tell Jerome? He had been my best friend since we were little, since before I transitioned, and I knew he would have no trouble helping me out, but for some reason I continued to hesitate. Why didn't I tell him? Hell, why didn't I tell my family? It seemed strange that I wasn't telling them about the arrival of their first grandchild but I just couldn't, and I couldn't quite explain why. It might be something to do with the fact that I was a mental wreck.

"What am I going to do?" I whispered as I stared around my trashed house, the baby items strewn everywhere, Hazel still in my arms. "I'm exhausted, I can hardly get up in the morning, I'm a mess. I can hardly take care of you."

And then, for the first time, the thought of giving her up crossed my mind. Would it make anything better?