A/N: This chapter is considerably heavier than the other ones....sorry not sorry. Also....let me know what you want to see with pregnancy/baby Cleven! Thank you!
February 1946
Today was Tuesday February 11—and Kathryn had been busy all week preparing her kindergarten class to have their Valentine's Day Party. She had been to the store and gotten all the paper that she needed to cut out hearts and hang them around her classroom. She had taken the time to make her own Valentines for every single child in her class (there were 23 of them). And the week was shaping up to be a good week.
She was a bit late getting home. Kathryn had stopped by an older teacher in the neighborhood's house. When old Mrs. Thwaites found out that Kathryn was teaching kindergarten, she offered up her decorations from the years prior, seeing as how she had just barely retired this past year.
So when Kathryn got home for the day, bags of decorations in hand, she was more than ready to get to work on the last of her progress for room decorations. The smell of pasta wafted from the kitchen and a grin spread across Kathryn's face.
Slipping off her shoes—they had been digging into the backs of her heels all day—Kathryn made her way into the kitchen and found Gale fending off Meatball from attempting to sneak a piece of food off the ground, phone in hand, and doing his best.
Immediately, she ushered Meatball out of the kitchen, freeing up Gale's attention span ever so slightly. "Who's on the phone?" Kathryn asked in a soft tone.
Gale mouthed Rosie and Kathryn's expression shifted ever so slightly. It wasn't that she wasn't glad to hear from Rosie. It's just that he didn't call all that much. Laura, on the other hand, called Kathryn at least once a week to chat and share all of her latest updates. For the past few months, they'd been in Europe and dealing with the Nuremberg Trials that were currently taking place.
She couldn't help that a brim of curiosity spread through her. Still, Kathryn turned the stove off after making sure that the pasta was done and then turned to face her husband. "What's he have to say?"
"Actually, he wants to talk to you," Gale said, turning to check on the pasta-sauce. "Do you want me to stay on the line?"
"Don't worry about it. You're busy," Kathryn reassured him. "I'll take the call upstairs—I've got to get these decorations upstairs anyway. I'll be down in a few."
"Sounds good."
And then Kathryn was taking the bags of decorations upstairs and depositing them in her closet and finding her way to the phone in the hallway. After a moment, the call connected her to Rosie. "Kath here!" Kathryn said into the phone.
"Hey Kathryn," Rosie greeted on the other end.
"I gotta say, I'm a little surprised to hear from you. Is everything okay with Laura? Oh God, is the baby—"
"No, no—they're fine!" Rosie exclaimed in a hurry. "Both are fine."
Kathryn let out a breath of relief. "Good, that's good."
"I'm calling because..." Rosie's voice trailed off for a second, hesitance dripping through the line. "Because of the trial."
Kathryn's grip on the phone tightened and her gaze narrowed. Her jaw clenched together and Kathryn's other hand balled into a fist, nails digging into the palm of her hand. "What about it, Rosie?" Her voice nearly trembled as she spoke out the words.
"Kath," Rosie's voice just sounded incredibly sympathetic and she felt like she wanted to throw up then and there. "Hausmann had his trial and he committed suicide this morning—"
She didn't hear anything after that. Not a single thing that Rosie was saying. She couldn't help the feelings that were rising in her chest or the way that she felt like she was suddenly drowning and being shoved under the waves of a merciless ocean. The pit in her stomach seemed to widen into a chasm and it tore up through her chest as she slammed the phone back onto the receiver, abruptly hanging up on Robert Rosenthal.
Her vision was swimming as Kathryn stumbled into the bedroom, all sense of self totally and completely slipping from her grasp. Because the fact of the matter was that Kathryn felt total and unadulterated rage and hatred . In this moment—Hausmann should have been having a slow and painful death. Her testimony should have sentenced him to the justice and demands of the court. It was what he deserved . It was the only way that Kathryn could receive her justice in any way, shape, or form.
But by killing himself, by taking the decision and autonomy out of her hands, out of the court's hands—he had selfishly robbed and raped her of her decision yet again. She felt as though her throat were closing up and she was being buried alive, dirt covering the casket she was so clearly lying in.
And in this moment of rage and red in her vision, Kathryn completely lost it . Her breaths were coming out in short spurts and she could scarcely suck in the air fast enough to sustain her lungs. She needed to throw something, needed to break something, needed to scream and scream and—
It was happening all over again and she could feel that thing inside of her, stealing away her safety and security and innocence. Could feel the bruises he was leaving inside of her legs and choking her out. He was going to snuff her from this earth as easily as blowing a candle out. There was no stopping him from taking what he wanted. No justice, no security.
Then she was gone.
Gale had been in the middle of dishing up plates for he and Kathryn when the screaming began. When the crash entered his ears—and he had dropped everything, making a mad dash for the stairs. Because surely if she was screaming like this, she must have fallen—something was broken and she was in pain and—
He slammed the door open and Gale felt the breath catch in his throat and all blood drain from his face. Because the sight in front of him was horrific . Crimson stained across the beige carpet in their room and glass littered the floor. Kathryn was absolutely manic, standing there and wailing, grasping at her chest as though she couldn't breathe—she had glass in her hands and all over her feet—and oh God, her eyes—there was absolutely nothing there as she stepped across the glass and continued to just scream.
For a moment, Gale was so taken aback by the sight—by the total loss of clear sanity by his wife. And then he was moving and she was backing up and away from him like a cornered dog or animal. What had happened? What had she been told? He didn't even have a minute to process that as Kathryn's gaze landed on a lamp near their bed.
"Kath—"
But she had already moved, the glazed over expression in her eyes seeming to be the present force in her mind. He lunged as she grabbed at it and she let out a bloodcurdling scream as he caught onto her wrists—
Something inhuman tore out of her throat but he needed to stop her—needed to stop this—she was hurting herself. Gale hauled her around the waist despite the fact that she was clawing at his arms and tearing at skin and he maneuvered until they were out of the bedroom and away from the broken glass.
They had no sooner made it into the hall when Kathryn elbowed him in the jaw and completely dropped to the ground. "Shit—" As soon as her body made contact with the ground, Kathryn just let out a choked sob and curled into a fetal position, shaking madly from head to toe.
Gale's gaze did not leave his wife as he carefully knelt on the ground in front of her. "Kath—" he started, trying to find the words to ground her, to center her—to reach whatever mania had taken her from him. And then his resolve strengthened and a firm expression just crossed his features. "I will love you until the day that I die. But please—just come back to me, baby ."
Something seemed to shift in her eyes as she was laying there. He wasn't sure if the words had gotten through to her or not. But then she was tearing at her clothes and gasping out for air. "I can't—I can't—"
Her voice filled his ears and Gale remembered— she hadn't been able to breathe back in that Prisoner of War Camp. She had been so lost to the panic and the memories and that was what was happening here.
She couldn't help it that she flinched as his hands closed over hers—and helped her remove the sweater that seemed to be suffocating her. It didn't get better—the breaths were still just coming out in short spurts and she was crying just as hard as she was trying to breathe. So Gale just cradled her against his chest and placed a palm over her heart.
"Breathe with me," Gale commanded.
It took several minutes of her just sitting there and trying to match his breathing patterns for the tears to stop and for her to utterly collapse against him in exhaustion. He couldn't even say anything, he didn't know what he could say. Most of the time, when Kathryn had attacks like this, she'd be able to speak afterwards. She'd tell him something or try to find a way to distract her own mind. But not this time.
This time, she was unable to even find a single coherent thought in all of her terror that she could verbalize. Gale's gaze searched over the emptiness in her eyes, the way that her hands were shaking, the paleness in her face, then tore over the fact that she was bleeding and didn't even seem to be feeling it.
"Shit, honey—" Gale breathed out, staring at the jagged shards of glass that were embedded in her hands and feet. He sucked in a breath—he needed to be clinical. Needed to approach this the same way that he approached a mission. He could not be emotional about it, despite the fact that his heart had dropped and was aching at the sight of her. "Honey, we need to clean you up. I'm going to lift you—"
Her grasp on him tightened and he swept her off the ground, going straight to the bathroom. He set her down on the counter wordlessly, rummaging for her first-aid kit that she had insisted they keep in the cabinet. After finding it in the bottom drawer, Gale returned his attention to Kathryn.
Her head rested against the mirror and she just seemed as though she were a damn ghost . She was physically here but wherever she was mentally, it was enough to keep her from speaking. To keep her from him.
It wasn't even until he was extracting a shard of glass from her foot that Kathryn even seemed to be coherent about what was happening. She inhaled sharply, tears pooling in her eyes again as she glanced down—
Glass and blood, when did that happen? When did she take off her sweater?
Gale's gentle grasp on her ankle seemed to tether her—and as soon as she had let out that gasp of pain, his eyes were on her. "Hurts..." Kathryn was only able to mumble out the word, clenching her teeth at the sensation.
He frowned at that—he had warned her about the pain that was going to come from this. "I know, honey," Gale said in a soft tone. "Gotta get the glass out, though."
Kathryn was barely cognizant of the fact that he not only removed the glass, but took the time to clean each of the cuts, then bandaged them up. It wasn't until he was standing in front of her, gaze flickering between her and the bedroom.
"I need to clean up—"
"Please don't leave me," Kathryn's voice cracked.
At that, Gale cupped her face in his hands—as if she were nothing more than glass. "I'm not going anywhere, honey."
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She waited patiently as Gale cleaned up the glass on the floor. The entire time, Kathryn just felt a gnawing sense of guilt as she stared at the mess in horror. She was ruined and broken and now they both knew it.
After he was done cleaning the glass up, he carried her into their bed. Kathryn curled up against his side, trying desperately to block out Hausmann with her husband. But every time she closed her eyes, it wasn't Gale beside her, it was Hausmann. And so she did not rest, she just lay there and stared at the wall.
Gale lived in a state of waiting—of standing at the ocean and being unable to enter the water. There was a wall between them right now and he didn't know how to tear that down, didn't know what he could possibly do or say to breach the wall that she was keeping. He had questions—he was worried about her. How could he not be? He had never quite seen her that mad.
"I hurt you," Kathryn's voice cracked. He glanced down at her, realizing that her gaze had fallen on the nail scratches across his arms. Deep enough to draw blood, deep enough to hurt him.
"You didn't mean to—"
"That doesn't make it okay," Kathryn whispered—she felt as though she were a dam that was constantly overflowing and there was nothing she could do to staunch the cracks or stop the flow of water now. "Don't make excuses for me."
He let out a deep sigh, then pressed a kiss to the top of her hairline. "You weren't yourself. Do you—"
"No."
Gale fell silent at her response, giving a nod. If she wasn't ready, he couldn't rush her on this. He had told her once, a long time ago, that if there was something he needed to know, then he'd learn it on her timing and on her terms. He was sticking by those words.
"Do you want anything to eat?"
"I'll be sick."
Kathryn wasn't lying about that. The thought of food literally made her scrunch up in visible pain—and it wasn't because the most prominent feeling in her body wasn't lying in bed next to her husband. No, the most prominent feeling in her body was the fire that was running up her legs and the pain that was spreading from the mere memory of what she had endured.
"You should get some sleep, darlin'."
Kathryn just kept staring at the wall. There was no rest to be had, no fixing what had happened—and no way for her to escape.
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If Gale Cleven, had in fact, checked the newspaper or the phones that next morning, he might have been clued in to why his wife was completely and totally destroyed . Instead, he didn't. In fact, it was too early for the newspapers to have arrived. Instead, he called Robert Rosenthal back, completely intent on finding out why the hell Kathryn had spiraled and what he had said.
Jaw clenched and ticking, he waited as the line rang—and then Rosie was on the other end of the line. "Rosie here—"
"What the hell did you tell Kathryn yesterday?" Gale's voice snapped out in a tone he hadn't ever quite used on another human being.
A beat of silence on the other end of the line. "You don't know?"
"Don't know what ?" Gale seethed.
"Yesterday, Hausmann committed suicide. I called to tell Kath before it hit the papers," Rosie explained.
"Goddamn it—" Gale cursed, letting out a breath of frustration. "You should have told me first—"
"I thought that she needed to know—"
"She's completely spiraled downwards. I should have been the one to tell her."
"Shit," Rosie breathed out, guilt running through him. "I didn't mean to—"
"It doesn't matter now. Thanks for the info," Gale then slammed the phone onto the hook—and he wanted to punch the wall, wanted to scream and cry and rage in the same way that Kathryn had. Because of course —this all made sense now.
He didn't do that though. Gale Cleven just stood there, hands on the wall to support him as he heavily breathed and tried to recenter himself in the middle of the storm. If Kathryn was the storm, he needed to be the eye of the storm. Needed to just get her through to the other side. And he could do that.
So he disconnected the phone and went back upstairs to Kathryn—and he didn't leave her side.
Now if he had bothered to glance out the window that morning—he would've noticed the fact that a car had appeared in his driveway. Would have recognized that car as Judith Egan's. But he didn't.
No, the person who recognized that car was Bucky Egan himself. And after seeing the newspaper that morning—with the headlines about Doctor Death and Kathryn Egan's entire testimonial being printed in the newspaper—with Hausmann's suicide —Bucky Egan knew that there was no stopping the fallout from all of that.
He had broken a mug in his kitchen when he realized that his sister's account of her rape had made front-page news. He had sworn and been angry and in a rage about the entire thing—but the minute that he saw his mother's car in their driveway, he marched over there and shut it down before it could even get anywhere.
"Absolutely not, ma." Bucky was a ticking time bomb—waiting to just explode on the wrong person who dared to bother his sister right now.
"Now Johnny—" Judith let out an exasperated huff of air. "Your sister is in the news! She slept with a Nazi, it's a whorish thing to do and lie about—"
" God , you're such a bitch."
"I beg your—"
"My sister—" Bucky snapped, pointing a finger at his mother, and then gesturing at the house. "Went through hell over there! You didn't ask. You didn't care. And you don't get to bother her about it!"
"I'm her mother—"
"Then you'll leave her alone. Get the hell outta here. Now."