MollyWobbles

Spoons (xviii)

Arthur has a bit of a panic. But it's fine. Really. Truly. Everything will be alright.

Playlist:
1. "Molly" by John Denver (**In fic song)

(CW: Pregnancy)

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Part IV: Spoons (xviii)

Arthur

March 8, 1970

Arthur paced the shop, rubbing his face. Olive and Molly were at lunch, and in her absence, the still room was a bit suffocating.

"It'll be okay, Mate," Gideon said softly.

"Our bed is halfway into our kitchen, Gid," Arthur groaned.

He stopped.

"You have to clothe children," Arty said.

How expensive were clothes?

Molly couldn't knit everything, could she? No. That was too much work for one person.

It'd need food too, eventually.

Maybe it could share off his dish.

Oh, and if it wasn't a squib, it would need a wand and—and if it was, there was the matter of transportation and funds for muggle schools. Did muggles need anything like cauldrons for school?

He snatched the spare bit of parchment from his pocket and scrawled down "research muggle cauldrons."

"You're going to drain the world of air if you carry on like this," Fabian drawled, but his voice was still a bit foggy from having broken down into tears ten minutes before.

Gideon had reacted quite the opposite—he'd laughed at the announcement, thinking it was a joke. Then he'd gone pale, and it had hit Arthur how much there really was to worry about.

Arthur didn't make enough money to take care of three people. Together, he and Molly were barely floating two.

Oh—oh—

And if there was a baby, one of them would have to be home. At least.

Arthur face drained of color.

"Here," Gideon hopped off the counter. "Why don't you pick a record out? On the house."

Fabian laughed. "Yeah, and you can sell it if things get awful and you need a few Sickles for a pair of ickle shoes."

Arthur shot Fabian a glare before he began to flip through the cardboard sleeves closest to him.

"I told her I would buy her a bloody house," Arthur said. "And I can't even afford to—"

He hung his head. Where would the child play? There was only a damp side street, filled with rubbish from a middling apothecary. They didn't even have the nice rubbish.

"I thought this would be different," Arthur whispered. "After everything you lot have—" He cut himself off. "And she'll be miserable; the baby won't have enough room. We'll be packed in too tight to—"

A new thought bowed him over.

Diagon Alley wasn't exactly safe, these days. Those Death Eater people, and the disappearances—

The cardboard surface under his hands snagged his gaze.

"Molly"

There, wedged into the track list.

"This one," he said, muted and thick as he skated his thumb over it. If he couldn't give her anything else, at least he might give her a song.

A warm hand clapped down on his shoulder.

"Come off it," Fabian said. "We're not going to hang you out to dry." He looked at the record, then plucked it up and stuck it to Arthur's chest. "Molly will be happy, and you will be happy, and this thing growing on her insides will be happy too."

He said it quite seriously.

Arthur nodded.

#

That night, Arthur spun the record for Molly. The one with her name.

The song was about a man who joined the circus, but had left a girl named Molly behind at home and now missed her greatly as he awaited their reunion.

It'd seemed only fair that Molly should have a song named for her, as well.

Unfortunately, the song made Arthur feel about two inches tall.

It was uncannily fitting, in some ways.

Extremely so.

The bits with her name were lovely, and Molly smiled there, but when it got to the party that went: "There's only one thing wrong—I haven't saved a penny on my own for Molly, oh, my pretty Molly—" Arthur felt it so deep into his chest that it felt like his spine might be piercing the back part of his heart.

He had not intended to break down in the middle of it, but he did, sitting against the flat wall, legs sprawled over the bed.

"This is rubbish; I'm not even the one who's pregnant," Arthur muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Molly wiggled under his arm. "Hello," she said. "It's Molly." This was a game they'd been playing all week.

"Hello, it's Arty," as he'd reach for his comb over her shoulder in the loo mirror.

"Hello, it's Molly," as she'd tut and insist on re-tying his tie exactly the same way as he'd had it before, just before they went to floo.

It was a nice game. Made him feel like they were seeing each other in those moments, and the silliness of it was always a good bit of fun.

Arthur smiled down at her sadly. "Hello, Molly Dear."

Then, very, very quietly, she asked, "What's a penny?"

And Arthur sputtered out a laugh and kissed her. "Muggle currency," he said.

Molly went quiet.

The record crooned "Grease paint covers everything but winter's chill."

Molly sighed and nestled her head up against his chest. "He should just go back to her already," she said. "There's a clear solution, and besides, he promised." Her arm twined over him, and she placed her hand on his opposite shoulder like they were slow dancing, rather than stuck in a cramped flat, sitting against a wall because they didn't have a headboard.

"It doesn't seem so terribly complicated," Molly mused.

"You don't think he should sort his bank vault, first?" Arthur mumbled.

Molly shook her head. "If I was that Molly, I'd rather have the time with him."

Her voice almost sounded like her fiddle, then, and Arthur listened hard.