Whiterose? Also the Schneeblings maybe . Bruh this week sucked ass for me too sending good vibes your way
it was important, Willow insisted before her first daughter was born, that their family still be...well, normal. money and prestige and the Company shouldn’t matter as much as keeping themselves and their child (children, Jacques corrected her, his tone angled to soothe) grounded and happy. all the other families they mingled with nowadays employed a ridiculous cadre of nannies, governesses, and au pairs, but...she wanted to try raising Winter herself.
Willow had been a stubborn one, when she was younger; even with the difficult birth and subsequently dreadful bout of postpartum depression it took Jacques several years to persuade her to be sensible about things. it pains me to see both of you so miserable, he said to her at last, and...how could she say no at that point? maybe being a good mother did mean keeping her distance at times.
finding a suitable caretaker (just one, Willow...pleaded, with Jacques acquiescing at last with a sigh) took another few years. both Winter and Willow were exacting in their own ways, and though his standards were a little different, Jacques too agreed that their family deserved nothing short of the best.
Klein was an unexpected surprise, but he slotted into their family so seamlessly and immediately that even Jacques--who’d initially balked at Klein’s...heterodox personality--came around to the sheer versatility of his service.
Weiss was nearly two by the time all the paperwork was signed; young enough still that all her earliest memories were tinged with his presence. by the time Whitley was born, it was as if he’d always been a part of the household.
it doesn’t take long--just another few years--for Klein to...occasionally slide into carelessness, and think of Weiss and Whitley as his.
it never fails to make him feel disloyal. not toward Jacques, of course--
though there had been...an incident. before Whitley could remember, when he’d seen Klein, and called out Da
--but toward Willow, who does try. she does. that her attempts become more faltering before disappearing completely--well, she can hardly be blamed for that, can she?
your mother loves you, he takes pains to remind the children, even as Willow herself ceases to, even as he indulges in sentimental fantasies where they are his children instead, where he can take them far away from the manor, Weiss and Whitley--
this is not a disloyalty. he does not love Winter any less, but there’s no denying that--
perhaps it is just that she remembers a time before he was part of their lives. or the way she’d looked at him during his first interview--all of seven, but already watchful and commanding far beyond her years. or that she eventually learned to turn to him, but she had to learn, or how he’d occasionally catch her looking at her siblings and see something in her gaze that mirrors his own desperate wish to call them his
--it’s simply a different kind of love. he finds himself trusting and relying upon her in a way he does not think to with Weiss and Whitley, and she seems to feel the same. she is his charge, but he cannot help but feel that they are partners in this, in a way that he cannot be with Jacques, or even with Willow.
it is not a disloyalty, but perhaps it is unfair; that he looks upon her for mutual protection, as an ally, when she is a child herself...
but Winter has never let herself be coddled, even after all these years.
he walks her out on the evening she departs for good. she’d bidden farewell to her siblings inside the manor--Weiss tremulous, Whitley sullen. a few steps from the gate Winter stops and turns sharply on her heel, away from him.
Klein stops as well. “Miss Winter?”
“I’ll be fine,” Winter says, with nearly enough steel in her words to hide the tremor in her voice. her hands clench into fists at her side, once, before she pivots around to face him again.
her head dips into a brief nod; a gesture of respect. “take care of them,” she requests. still watchful, still commanding.
two hours ago he’d held Weiss in his arms as she’d wept out her bitterness and frustration. an hour and a half later he’d cajoled himself hoarse at Whitley’s closed door before it finally opened, and then all but frog marched the boy downstairs to say his farewells.
with Winter he reaches out, almost aimless; he loves her differently but he loves her. it’s important that she knows. it’s important that he try to grasp, one more time, for the piece of her she locked away before he’d ever set foot on the manor grounds.
he catches her hand instead. she starts, but does not flinch away, and under the starched glove of her new uniform her grip is warm.
“always, Miss Winter,” Klein promises.
