He could see that she didn’t agree with him. That the words he was saying, didn’t add up to what she felt in her heart right now. Didn’t match what she might be about to do. Rowan didn’t react to her laugh, frankly he did not know if he was in any position to keep telling Charlie what to do. Mostly, he felt obligated to say more because of Valorie. Had Charlie just had herself to think about, then he would have been ten times more understanding, and he would have told her so. But parenting was about more than what you wanted and what you needed. As far as he could tell, you should always put your kids first. Even when it was hard, even when you wanted to give up and step back, lied down and not try at all. “No Charlie, thats what you want now. Because its so much easier to give up than it is to fight. I might not have been in your exact shoes, but I have been trough hell while turning for the first time, I know what that feels like. You want to know why I didn’t give up? Because I had people who counted on me, who needed me to get back up. Valorie is your daughter and I think that if you give up, if you let her go now, then you will regret it for the rest of your life. Which now, might be a very very long time. Being without her mother is not what is best for Val. She needs you there. For all of it. For talking and kindergarten and school, for all the things in life she is going to have to learn. Do not make her grow up without a mother. Don’t sentence yourself to a miserable existence without her, without anyone. We will help you, you know we will. Don’t give up, please.” He wasn’t telling her, he was asking her, near begging actually. It was heartbreaking to think that Valorie too would be left motherless, when her mother was very much alive. “You have a choice right now, to do right by her.” He added. As for this other argument they were having, both seemed to want to comfort and dispute the other. “Its actually an instinctual response. Your body produces more oxytocin after giving birth which increases auditory responses in the brain when your baby is crying. Besides, anyone with a protective instinct would have run like hell towards that kind of sound, no matter the logic. No I’m not a psychic, I’m just an officer who can never get there in time to save his loved ones. I’m always too late. Which means I fail them over and over.” he shook his head hard, yet her soft voice had his features softening back a bit as well.
“I don’t want help, Rowan! Why doesn’t anyone see that? I can’t count the number of times I’ve had people offering their help lately, and I’m just fed up with it. There is nothing to help with. I’m not something that needs picked up and put back together. I’m not an addict that fell off the wagon. I’m not a little girl that got lost and can’t find her way home. I was a witch and then I died, again, and now I’m this. I’m something no one understands, and everywhere I turn it feels like people are either afraid of me or they want to study me. Then there’s the ones that seem to pity me, which are probably my least favorite. I don’t want pity, I don’t want help, I don’t want to be studied. I want to be left alone because at least when I’m by myself I don’t have to be okay.” She couldn’t stop once she’d started, her tone harsher than she usually would’ve used, underlined with something akin to a growl. When she finally fell silent she looked away, taking a moment to just breathe before she turned back to him. “I still should’ve known. Should’ve paid attention to the prickle of magic over my skin instead of running headlong into a trap. You aren’t failing anyone. You try, over and over, and the only way you could fail them is if you didn’t.”
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