Holding Hands Won't Be Enough

--- As of 4th March 2014, please re-read chapter 44 as I have changed the plot to prolong the story. ---

Milly drifted in and out of sleep from pure exhaustion the entire night - she didn’t know if Ville was still in the house, truth be told she didn’t care - the curve balls that had come at her the previous evening had knocked her for six; she played them over and over again in her mind for hours. Upon waking for the thousandth time, she turned over and grabbed the clock from her nightstand, it was just before seven thirty and it was only then she noticed the sounds of birds outside. Sitting up and reaching for the silk robe at the end of her bed, she caught sight of herself in the large antique mirror leaning against the wall; she felt like she had aged ten years in the past two weeks. Sighing, Milly padded towards her closed door, pausing when she reached it and clamping her hands to her face - she inhaled deeply, held it, then exhaled as she pushed her hair back into a mess of a bun on the top of her head. “You can do this. You gave birth alone, you can do anything.” she said quietly to herself as she held her hand on the door knob tentatively.

She didn’t expect silence throughout the house, usually she was greeted with the sounds of Oscar playing in his room or watching cartoons, but this morning, it was eerily quiet. Passing a large bay window she peered out onto her gardens, a thick fog had settled over night and was lingering, as it did in Los Angeles, in the dense humid air.. “Osi..” she called, heading towards his room, he couldn’t possibly still be sleeping she thought. “Oscar?” she called again, leaving his room and pacing towards the stairs, listening for any signs of life in the house. Still, nothing. A streak of panic washed through her, as it would with any mother, “Ville?” she called out loudly, praying to god he answered - when he didn’t all sorts of awful things ran through her mind, all of which stopped when she was greeted, as she ran from the living room to the kitchen, with Ville and Oscar coming in through the front door. “Oh my god!” she exclaimed, grabbing her head with one hand and a wall with the other, “I was scared to death.. Oh god.” she panted, a solitary nervous laugh rolling off her tongue.

“I sent him in to see if you were awake, we were going to make breakfast,” he explained, nervously now realising that he probably should have left a large note somewhere she would have immediately seen.

“But the cupboards were bears.” Oscars laughed from his perch on Ville’s hip.

“I’m sorry.” he blurted, “I didn’t think. I should have-”

“It’s fine. You don’t know these things yet…”

“I should.”

“Ville, it’s fine. Oscar is safe, of course he’s safe, he was with his father… My overactive and under-slept mind just went into momentary overdrive.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“Please, don’t be.” she said abruptly, before reeling her neck back in and easing up, “I don’t suppose there’s coffee in that mystery box is there?” she inquired, nodding her head at the recyclable carrier he was holding in the hand not supporting their child.

“There absolutely is coffee in the mystery box. Very large, very strong coffees.”

————
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“Pikkuinen, I put cartoons on in the play room, would you like to eat your breakfast in there so your Daddy and I can talk a little bit?” he nodded his head assuredly and followed her, and more importantly, his french toast, into the play room.

“French toast, huh?” Ville smirked, she laughed.

“It’s like a drug to him, but you shouldn’t give in when he asks for it, it’s a weekend only treat. Dentist fees are outrageous for a check-up alone, I dread to think how much it’ll cost me once his big teeth grow through as slices of sugary bread.”

“I’ll be sure to bare that in mind, though, he can be covered under the health insurance I have through the band you know. I don’t pay for a-“

“Ville, don’t…” she insisted, “We have a lot of things to talk about before we even think about things of that nature…”

“You managed to get some sleep?”

“Not really, but I did think, a lot, about yesterday, about everything since the day you turned up…”

“And?” she looked down at her hands, Ville braced himself, he knew her too well to know this would be anything other than what he didn’t want to hear.

“I shouldn’t have let anything that happened at the Note happen, I’m so ashamed of myself for being so selfish when there are children involved. I’m ashamed of you for knowing she was pregnant the night you found out about Oscar, you set into motion all these avoidable events, all this avoidable heartache…” his head bowed, he didn’t have any words, his heart was swelling in his throat.

“I can’t allow you to up and leave Jonna, as much as I would love to see the exact moment that her heart breaks into two fucking pieces and smile at her as she did me, I will not have it happen when there is a child involved. I can’t knowingly begrudge a child of their father again.”

“I don’t love her.”

“You’ll learn to. A child changes you.”

“You’re begrudging Oscar of a father.” she shook her head.

“No, I’m not. He’s grown up with a man he knew wasn’t his father, because I did not for one second allow him to think that Seth was anything other than a man. A child’s father is a child’s right, I always knew that one day I’d have to tell him and I wanted you to be the only father he would know. Jonna won’t do the same, you and I both know that. You will be the enemy.”

“So what, I just go back and pretend like nothing’s changed?”

“Yes.” she said sadly.

“I know you don’t want this.”

“I don’t want this. At all.” she swallowed hard, “But what I want even less is you one day hating yourself, or me, or Oscar, for the decision you make regarding her.”

“I won-“

“You don’t have that foresight. I hate myself for not telling you, I hate you for bringing it upon yourself, sometimes-“ she choked, “I even find myself hating Oscar, because, if I hadn’t found out I was pregnant, I wouldn’t have come home and found you with her..”

“But I want my family.”

“You’ll have it. A big dysfunctional, multi-continent family.”

“What if it’s not mine?”

“What if I die tomorrow?” she retorted. “We can theorise and plan all we like, the fact of the matter is you won’t know until it happens and you can’t risk what happens in the mean time on it.”

“You’re being so cold.”

“I have to be.”

“You love me.” she wiped the tear on her cheek away with the back of her hand and nodded.

“And now you need to love her.”

"I ca-"

"Ville, as of this moment, I'm your child's mother and at most, your friend from the past.. I can't be anything more. I'm sorry."

"What if I refuse?" he asked stubbornly, sitting up straight and serious. Her face sallowed and she bit down pensively on her lip.

"Then I wil refuse..."

"You will refuse what?"

"To let you see Oscar." his face twisted.

"You're going to blackmail me?"

"Only if you make this difficult. I'm thinking of that child, Ville, YOUR child - how are you failing to understand that? You have no idea what it means to be a parent raising a child on your own, it's fucking horrible; not only that, but you and I both know Jonna will make your life a living hell if it is your child and you abandoned her, I will not have that on either of our conscience."

"I can't believe this." he exhaled, dragging his hands down his face, realising that Milly was unrelenting, and ultimately, correct.

"I will love you until my last breath, but this is more important than us..." she slid her hand across the table and squeezed his, "I promise you this is the right thing to do and I know you know it is too." he stared at her hand, before turning his over and holding hers - lacing their fingers together and running his thumb over her forefinger, "You have to be there for that little baby, Ville, you have to be. I won't allow you not to be."

"Okay," he said barely above a whisper, "but only on one condition."

"What?" she asked, looking intently into his face, she couldn't bring herself to look at their fingers intwined.

"You and Oscar fly to Helsinki with me, take him to meet my parents, they still don't know.." he realised, crushingly. He'd been so caught up in everything, and he knew none of their friends would have said a word to anyone, "If I have to be with her she will have to deal with you being a part of our lives."

"I can't just up and fly to Helsinki, I have a job."

"You own a company Milly, it's not like the old days, you have staff now and you pay them to work so make them fucking work." he said bitterly, the crushing realisation that he was bargaining for time with her hit him like a freight train - he was positive coming here everything would work out how he had been imagining it since he first laid eyes on her again.

"I can't Ville."

"When was the last time your family saw him? When was the last time you were home?"

"I am home."

"Really home, Helsinki home, damn it."

"Ville, stop it."

"I won't go if you don't."

"You have to go."

"Then so do you."