And raised our children up as gently as you please

Nick had always been afraid to ask Amelia directly how she and his father had gotten together. From the moment he met the gorgeous older woman, it had been a question nagging in the back of his mind, and as he got older and experienced the stressful urges of puberty, and passed the age his stepmother had been when she joined their family, his curiosity only grew.

But he’d never had the courage to ask about it. Not once he was old enough to understand more about the world and relationships, anyway.

“How did you and my dad meet?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

He’d just been a nosy kid back then. He was older now, yes, but by the time he was old enough where it wouldn’t be weird to ask, a lot had changed. Not only had his father passed away, leaving Amelia as the only real family he had left, but he had reached the point where he could look back at his stepmother’s relationship with his dad, and see a lot of red flags that he missed as a kid.

For one thing, Amelia wasn’t just young in comparison to Nick’s father. She was very young. Only 19 years old when she uprooted her whole life and moved across an entire ocean to marry a man she barely even knew. Nick’s father had only been 30 himself, but still- that was an age gap of more than 10 years.

Nick had always had a positive image of his dad; even though he was always on tour with his band, he made a lot of effort to be in Nick’s life when he could. And Nick knew how hard he was working to care for him. He’d always loved his father, even though he never knew him all that well.

So that was why he was afraid. Amelia had been at the threshold of her teenage years when she married a man a good deal older than her; yes, the world was different back then, but not that different.

As confident, composed, and capable as Amelia was, Nick kept thinking about how she was so young when she’d got married, and how uncomfortable that fact made him. His dad had gotten married to a teenager!

As a child, Nick didn’t see anything wrong with that. As a man in quite a similar position now, he knew how skeevy and gross that was. He’d tried very hard to not do anything untoward with Morgana for exactly that reason, knowing how **** the young woman was. And the fact that Nick was on the right side of a 10-year age gap didn’t make him suddenly comfortable with it.

So, Nick had done his best to ignore the obvious. He’d refrained from asking Amelia, and tried not to think about his dad’s relationship with her as best he could. Because he loved his father, and he didn’t want to hear anything that would tarnish his memory of him.

But… his father was dead. Amelia was still alive. He could, he did still have a relationship with her, he couldn’t have a relationship with him.

To better understand his stepmother, he’d have to hear everything- even if it ruined his image of his father for good.

Nick clenched his teeth and accepted the inevitable, and let Amelia tell her side of the story.

Amelia was quiet for some time. Nick could feel her eyes on him, like she was studying him, and his heart sank in his chest. He bit his lip nervously, wondering why she was giving him such a pressured stare like this.

It’s not… that big of a deal, right? He thought worriedly. I mean… is it?

Nick hoped he hadn’t uncovered any painful memories. But he knew in his heart that he must have. However their relationship had started, Nick never doubted that Amelia truly had loved his father. She had cried at his funeral- that had only been the second time he’d ever seen her cry that hard.

Talking about their relationship must have been difficult for her- she already had trouble expressing her feelings in words, after all. That was another reason Nick had avoided the topic entirely.

But- he needed to know. He and Amelia were both stuck, orbiting one another in an awkward relationship that mirrored the one they’d had when he’d been a small child. They both needed to move forward, and getting to know Amelia not as his stepmother but as a woman with her own life was the only way Nick could think of to do that.

Amelia must have arrived at the same conclusion. A sigh passed her lips and she slowly nodded, looking him in the eyes.

“Nicholas… the truth is… my relationship with your father was not of any particular significance,” Amelia admitted.

Of all the things Nick expected her to say, that wasn’t one of them.

“O… okay? I’m sorry?” He didn’t really know how to respond to it, either.

“I was quite young… when I married your father,” Amelia murmured. It was an obvious statement, and usually she avoided making those. She knew how young she’d been, and Nick knew it as well.

He nodded timidly.

“At the time, I was living a very listless life,” Amelia murmured. “Living for the sake of my family.”

Nick felt a shiver roll down his spine. His stepmother had rarely talked about her family- he knew they were old money- very old money. “Trace your heritage back to Game of Thrones times” old money.

In fact, she was actually titled nobility. Not that she looked the part.

“My parents were incredibly strict,” Amelia informed him. “I suppose you could say… running off to marry a ‘rock star’ was an act of teenage rebellion, on my part.”

Nick nodded. He’d figured it had been something like that.

“But… that is not the entire truth.” Amelia pressed her lips together in a tight line and shook her head. “You see… when I met your father, I was at a significant crossroad in my life.”

Nick’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” He asked hesitantly. It was rare to see Amelia so expressive. Whatever she was talking about, it was clear that it resonated from deep within her breast.

Amelia raised her head. Her green eyes, usually so sharp and commanding, were soft. Almost like she was about to cry.

“I have always wished… to be a mother,” she said, placing her hand over her stomach. “It was a dream of mine… since I was a little girl.”

“Yeah, I-I know,” Nick said, looking down. He knew how badly Amelia had wanted that.

“I wish I could say that this desire came purely from my own heart… but that is not so,” Amelia added, giving Nick some information that he hadn’t known.

But that was all. He looked at her in confusion, urging her mentally to elaborate further, but Amelia did not.

She merely stared at him, confused by the look of confusion on his face.

“I- wh-what do you mean?” Nick blurted out, feeling the pressure hanging in the air. “I don’t understand…”

Amelia let out a soft, faint gasp. She felt somewhat foolish, having expected Nick to simply understand her perspective. “Yes, well… I suppose I should have explained better,” she conceded, shaking her head. “My family, the Campbells, were a very prestigious family. Not as wealthy as Vivian Carrington, of course, but- we were quite well off.”

“I know, you grew up in a castle or something, right?” Nick had heard this story a couple of times already.

Amelia’s eye twitched. She was frustrated by the interruption, but she understood that Nick was aware of this already. “…Yes, well… it was always expected of me, as a woman, to meet a man of good standing, get married, and provide heirs to the family,” she explained.

Her voice contained more bitterness than Nick had ever heard from her. “That’s crazy,” he blurted out in a mutter of disbelief, shaking his head. “What century are we living in?”

Amelia raised her eyebrow at him but refrained from further comment, simply moving along with her story. “While that was their expectation of me… it was a dream I held for myself, as well,” she murmured wistfully. “I wanted to be a mother. But… even with the resources of my family you cannot always get what you want.”

Nick’s heart sank in his chest. It was just as he’d always assumed. Amelia was…

“I am infertile,” she bluntly declared, placing her hand over her womb. “My body is incapable of conceiving a child. Your father understood this, and accepted it… my parents…”

Her voice trailed off and she fell silent. She assumed that would be enough information for Nick to understand the rift that had formed between herself and the rest of her family.

She assumed correctly.

“I’m sorry…” Nick looked down, not sure what else he could say. He knew how much Amelia wanted to be a mother. And to not be able to do so…

“Do not apologize,” Amelia gently chastised him, placing her hand on his knee. He turned to see her eyes sparkling with compassionate adoration, and the faintest hint of a sad smile on her lips. “I have no regrets for the life I have lived,” she assured him.

She didn’t mention the fact that raising Nick had more than fulfilled her yearning to have a child. Surely he would understand that, of course?

“It was a crushing feeling,” Amelia said gently, giving his knee a squeeze, “having my dream taken from me at such a young age. I felt empty… purposeless. All my life, I only wanted one thing… and by the time I was a teenager I had learned that I never could…”

Nick wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. He felt so ashamed to be the one crying when Amelia carried herself with such composure as she spoke of her painful past.

“…Around that time, I met your father,” she revealed. “He was touring the country with his band. I met him in person after a show, and… we… talked.”

She cleared her throat, and her eyes flickered away from his for a fraction of a second. Enough to reveal that she’d done a lot more than “talk” with his father.

Nick felt gross. This was the part of the story he could do without.

“…He spoke of you, in fact,” Amelia said, and Nick’s heart froze.

He looked at her in surprise. “He… he did?”

She nodded. “I could feel a great deal of guilt from him. He told me about how his wife had passed away several years prior, and that he wanted to spend more time with you… but the only way to take care of you was by working so far away.”

Nick didn’t need to be reminded. He remembered the string of nannies and caretakers that had paraded across his childhood while his father was out and about. It really wasn’t his fault- his dad’s band had never “made it” stateside- no one knew any of their music. But somehow they’d managed to become a smash success in Europe, of all places, and so the only way his father had to support them was by spending most of his time abroad.

“He wanted to take you with him, you know,” Amelia murmured. “To settle down with you in Germany, of all places.”

“Germany?!” Of all the countries to pick, why THAT one?

“But… he couldn’t bring himself to do it,” Amelia said, shaking her head. A faint smile touched her lips once again as her eyes glazed over. Nick suddenly realized that she wasn’t here in the Master’s Suite with him anymore. She was back with his father again, back in that conversation that had taken place almost two decades ago.

…

…He really hoped she had her clothes on back then…

“…Why didn’t he?” Nick asked quietly. It would have been so much easier for them. He could spend more time with his dad, and his dad wouldn’t have to spend so much money on housekeepers and nannies.

“Because he couldn’t bring himself to leave the house your mother loved so dearly,” Amelia revealed.

It felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on Nick’s head. “Mom…”

Amelia nodded, and now Nick could see that she was crying. “He told me… that your mother picked out that house when she was pregnant with you. She said that it was the perfect place to raise a family. She loved that house so dearly, that after she passed… he couldn’t bring himself to sell it. And… he didn’t want to rob you of a connection to your mother’s memory.”

Nick barely remembered his birth mother. Amelia was the first person he thought of when he thought of a mothering figure in his life.

But… there were flashes. Glimpses, fragments of a woman he knew was his mother. The sight of her back as she cooked over a stove, humming to herself. The feeling of being held by tender arms as he was spun around the room to one of his dad’s songs. And that smile… the smiling face he couldn’t quite picture, but hovered faintly at the edge of his consciousness.

Nick’s vision began to blur as his eyes grew wet.

“Your mother loved you so much,” Amelia said gently. Nick suddenly felt her body pressed up against his, and realized she was hugging him. Amelie rested her cheek against her shoulder and held him close, her voice wet and gentle. “He always talked about how if you loved her even just as fraction as much as she loved you, then he would be satisfied with that.”

“I wish I could remember her…” Nick’s voice cracked as tears rolled down his cheeks. “Dad always said she loved me so much… but I can barely remember…”

“She’s always been with you, watching over you,” Amelia said softly. “You may not remember, of course… but when you were little, you used to look at me with such guarded eyes, and that’s when I knew… I could be many things for you, Nicholas, but I could never replace your mother in your heart. Even if you couldn’t remember her… there will always be a special place for her, right there…”

Nick felt her fingers brush against his chest, and his breath hitched in his throat.

“A-Amelia…” He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that Amelia was his mother too, but the words couldn’t come out.

“Hearing about you from your father… hearing how much he loved you… it swayed me in a way I never thought it could,” Amelia murmured. “It was supposed to be a simple dalliance… but… I realized then… that I had a chance to realize the dream I thought I had lost.”

She gazed up into her stepson’s eyes. It took everything in her to not cry the way he was. “It isn’t that I never loved your father… or that I saw him as simply a tool to become a mother… …But the love, it… it came later, for us both,” she admitted, looking away.

Nick had never seen his stepmother look so guilty before. It stunned him.

“I wanted to be a mother more than anything… so I proposed to him that, if he wanted… I would move to the U.S. and marry him, and be a mother for you. That I would love and cherish you as if you were my own son. He was hesitant at first, but when I explained my side of things… he understood.”

“So that’s how it happened… it… it was just some contract, then?” Nick wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Knowing that his father wasn’t some predator who had groomed a young woman into his wife (although he’d definitely slept with her) should have been a relief, but hearing that they’d just got married for his sake just made him feel uncomfortable.

Amelia shook her head sharply. “No, like I said- I did end up falling in love with him,” she assured him. “Please do not doubt that, Nicholas. And your father, he… he loved me, as well.”

That did ease Nick’s discomfort a little bit. He nodded, glad to hear that part, at least.

Amelia continued to gaze at him, her eyes watery with tears of remorse and adoration. “Beyond that… I don’t… I…”

“No, it’s fine,” Nick said, pulling away from her. He knew how hard it must have been for Amelia to even reveal that much. But he was glad he heard it.

He loved her, he really did. And hearing how he’d helped her find something that she’d thought she’d never get to have…

It made him feel closer to his stepmother than he ever had.

The smile slowly returned to Amelia’s face as she gazed up at him from the couch. He could feel the warmth in her eyes, and it made his heart dance.

“I am glad… that it was you,” she said, placing her hand over her breast as her face flushed with affection. “You needed a mother, and I… I needed someone to love. And that someone turned out to be you.”

There were more things about Amelia that she had not revealed to her stepson. Some of them because she felt it unnecessary, some she intentionally concealed, feeling there was no need for him to know those parts of her life.

But regardless… she had entrusted Nick with a great deal of her heart. And she was glad that he had accepted it so readily.

It warmed the guilty feeling in her chest and made her smile from ear to ear. As she gazed up at her stepson, she understood just how happy she felt, being his mother. Even if she could not replace his birth mother, she did not need that.

Seeing how much he loved and cared for her was reward enough.

“…That was quite a long story, wasn’t it?” She realized, rising to her feet. She glanced up at the clock. “It seems that it is almost-”

Her statement was interrupted by a knock at the door that made Nick jump. He hastily wiped his eyes and rushed over to see who it was.

“Um… hello,” Ella said uneasily, looking up at him. She bit her lip and stepped inside. “I’m here to work, if… if that’s okay…”

“Yeah, sure, of course,” Nick said, nodding quickly. “Absolutely, come- come on in!”

He let Ella into the room, and she looked around, still chewing on her lip. She snapped her rubber-band with a “Thwap!”

Ella was very sensitive to tension, and she could feel the awkwardness in the air. She looked at Nick again, and wondered what she’d just intruded on. With his stepmother, of all people!

…Maybe she was better off not knowing… …That was the conclusion she arrived at, and she quickly got to work.