So you've had a baby in a bathtub

Lillian is wet and cold in the bathroom of a hotel. She's holding the screaming bloody little infant and she can't understand how this happened, or why this was happening to her right now. 

"Are you alright dear?" she hears her boyfriend say, he's been trying for a promotion but she didn't really like to call it that. Not really.

She looked up at him, trying to pull him down to hold, "Yes? Why wouldn't I be?" 

"Well, you are meeting my parents. It's the usual thing to be a bit nervous." 

"Why would I be nervous? My mom could beat yours up, I'll be fine!" 

"Good! That'll work." he decided, which is a fair enough response, in any case his family did appear as scheduled, with a whole photo album of her boyfriend's various exes and their very own salad and dollar store coffee since the type Lilian could afford was a bit rich for their blood.

It was at this point she decided that Ana, her mom, was too good for this particular kill. 

Luckily they'd had everything ready before they managed to come over which made things run rather quickly. Future worries and all kinds of supposedly important discussion went past and around, but like many other things Lilian couldn't bear it much focus. She knows that the subject of her business trip came up, but even that wasn't large in her memory. 

Dinner was done and over in only an hour and a half which left them with coffee and reminiscing about her boyfriend's life before she'd entered it, "I'm simply stuffed, I was surprised you could manage such a spread!" like it was all that hard to feed them when they apparently came compact with their own salad.

The entire affair was rather short lived after that, as she hadn't even gotten through his high school sweetheart or their frankly crass coffee, before her future in-laws promptly left. 

She could've been angry, but Lilian was just happy for it all to be over. 

Lilian needed boosters right after her birth, the kinda thing that would've been warned off anyway, but felt oddly urgent in any case. The kinda thing that could be looked over later and decide whether she'd ever been a worthy mother. She wasn't all things considered, but it was hardly fair to think about before the thing had a name. It wasn't urgent yet, surprise babies have always been a thing, and there's always forgiveness in the timeline for situations like hers even without help. But she was so beautiful, and she didn't have a name. Lilian wasn't, and she'd had one when she was found, but Lilian sounded nicer so that was her name ever since Ana found her. Lilian isn't sure what would sound right for someone so new. 

She needs to sleep. 

She's looking at her boyfriend's past along with the woman who'd raised him and had long decided all she'd like to believe about Lilian. Looking at his face before he'd grown into it was something, but she couldn't think anything about the girls he'd been pictured alongside, was she meant to be angry with them for liking him? Was she supposed to be jealous of his past?

Was she meant to feel something about the half-formed women he had access to in boyhood? "How old were you when you started dating, Dear? Seven, eight?" which got her a laugh from everyone but his mother, and she's still a bit lost looking at him. Even if she didn't think much of his supposed past girlfriends, he was at least never ugly. 

She wonders how Ana felt before finding her, or if she ever felt this level of decisive protection over something so miniscule. This ugly defense of a person before threat of any real terms was levied. 

She's leaving the terminal with only a cursory glance at her surroundings, the airport still being very familiar despite her time abroad. Lillian was in Italy a few hours ago, she'd been working on and off for two months and she'd finally left with a clean bill of health and all kinds of thoughts milling about. She's holding her baby and all she can think is that two months was nowhere long enough to acclimate to the position of mom. Which was fair enough given the shock of her birth, that was what the doctor explained to her, and that was the story she was going with.

She'd gone about with her fiancé like women often do, and her little Epiphany took root despite her ignorance. Lillian has always had a disagreeable uterus and so she'd gotten away with being a bit ill-conscious of her body, of that potential. She'd never really had a normal period after all.

It was something like that… but she's so dark. 

How was he going to respond? Certainly her history was a bit of a question mark, but his being quite a bit more accessible simply wasn't. She thinks she could live with it if she'd cheated properly, though she isn't sure she could manage by herself; it's not like she'd be the first dubious single mom. 

But then again, maybe her history would cover it. She knew the stats on skin color, on hair type. She just needed to avoid a paternity test. And whatever else for that matter. 

She was glad her eyes were brown though. Brown was dominant and given that they already were they had better cover than most. 

She's sitting on the toilet lid in a stolen uniform, she's wet and cold, skin to skin with a baby. This wasn't meant to happen like this. Her client made the request, and now she's got a baby…"oh look at you, you're just beautiful aren't you? Breathing for me." 

Looking over at the bloody bath, the dead bubble bath. How she found the strength to do anything at all. 

She needed to clean up. 

Cleaning up was the last thing she'd needed to do before leaving for Italy, that last thing before meeting with her temporary handler, her grandmother in a sense. It's the last thing she does before going to bed with her boyfriend of a year give or take, after meeting his parents properly and questioning everything like she ends up doing with people. But it's the first real thing she does with her baby.

It's a bit simple all things considered, but her baby is swaddled in a hotel bath towel, tush propped up with another, rolled up so the too new baby was comforted out of hand while she refixes the bath to a less birthing room appearance, and settles the model's head beneath the water. Inevitable provable death. 

Overkill really.

And then she meets with grandma. Great-grandma. She's never gotten a baby before. Her own mother found her first. Maybe it makes sense that she'd find a baby herself. 

Twice the care and keeping of a Swiss prisoner. That was the head price of Marielle Abel. the worth Mariana Bellini placed on the model's head, and maybe the value her husband had wasted wining and dining the girl before enough was enough and the girl needed to go. 

She looks up to see him, his gaze pulled down to the wiggly creature in her arms, then back to her. He holds out his hands with greater care than she was really thinking to, and she hands off the little roll of baby to her… she isn't actually sure if he'll want to stay with her, but it's her baby now, and he can die mad if he thinks she cheated in any way that matters. 

"So, who's this?" he asked, not quite as nerve wrecked as he could be, holding her properly skin clashing. And it really doesn't matter at all. 

"Epiphany." she answers, and he smiles a question he can't arrange without letting go of the over-stable focus he'd decided was necessary to handle an infant.

"That's a name I guess." 

Lilian answers anyway, because that's the question he wanted to ask, and she's thankful that this was what was important to him. "It means to Reveal suddenly." 

"I take it she was a surprise then?", he said.

Lilian was a bit cracked at this smiling brightly, "To say the least. It was a horror show really. I can explain everything if you let me." 

"Not yet dear, I think we have to get home first." he said, just a hair more upset than she'd been expecting. Still, it was on her to set up the car seat in the back, strapping Epiphany in before thinking at all about why.

It was actually longer done the road when she'd come to any real understanding, "I didn't call did I?"

"No, you didn't."

"I'm sorry."

"That's alright dear."

"It was a bathtub." she said rehearsed, still certain she'd done him wrong even looking his way.