Marius' Story chapter 3

A/n: Hi everybody!! Thanks again for your lovely comments on chapter 2!! Hope you like chapter 3!! It's a bit short.

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It was not enough, Marius realized only half an hour later, staring at the smiling, utterly helpless child on the table in front of him. He'd changed Mo's diaper again and this time it was filthy, full of a uniquely foul-smelling olive green mess. He'd dug into his diaper bag to put her in a clean one and realized that he only had ten diapers total, and fewer washcloths – he'd have to wash the soiled ones today if he was going to have enough dry for tomorrow. The thought had sparked another, and he dug again in the diaper bag, this time looking for the little paper packets that contained Mo's formula.

One,two, three, four, five, six, seven...eight. Eight. And Mo had gone through two already, and he was going to have to feed her again quite soon. At this rate he'd be through six of the ten by the time the day was out. And don't babies eat at night, too?

He stilled, horrified. He needed cash, now, or the child would go hungry in less than a day.

Shit. He'd found the first job too easily, he thought, frustrated. Of course it couldn't work out perfectly. Nevermind that it's already the hardest job I've had in my life, and for the least pay.

Okay, think, he told himself. Think, think, think. Don't panic. He needed another job. By tomorrow. One that would pay him without the proper papers, and that either didn't interfere with this one, offered a bed, too, or paid enough that he could afford to pay rent and still buy food and baby formula. Oh, and that would either let him bring a baby along with him every day, or also paid enough that he could afford a babysitter.

In other words, I'm fucked. He couldn't find a job like that if he was looking in his world, and had a month.

Don't panic. Panic doesn't help. Funny how thinking 'don't panic' didn't do a lick of good.

Harlot, he realized next. Maybe she'll know where to start. But if he didn't clean out the diapers now, they'd still be wet the next morning.

Okay, so I wash the diapers, first. By hand. Using well-water. You have got to be kidding me. He'd been able to sit down for a total of about half an hour since he'd left for school that morning. It was strange to think that that was just that morning. His problems were so different that it seemed like a different lifetime. Different world, he reminded himself. In this one, they had wells. Ones with a bucket at the end of a rope, probably.

“Bighana?” he asked, hearing his voice shake. “Where's the well? And can you lend me a bucket? One you don't mind getting gross?... And maybe soap?”

“Don' use soap,” she said. “Stuff we have'll hurt'er worse than somewha' dirty clothes will. As for the bucket-” She pointed, and he saw a large, wooden basin tucked under the table. “I use it anytime I get ahol' of any unprepared meat and am throwing out the inedibles,” she told him. “But it'll work for you, too. The well's out this door and at the end of the alley to the left. Bring the chil' with you - I can' be distracted from my cooking if she cries. An' clean the basin out before you bring it back - I won' have my kitchen smelling like that diaper does. If you manage to get a bit o' coin, I'll throw your things in with those that the laundress does so you don' have to wash'em.”

Yeah, great. Cash always is the question. “Yes ma'am,” he told her. “...thank you.”

Lifting the more-or-less clean and content baby, he placed her in a basket before throwing both dirty diapers and the washcloths he'd used into the basin.

Damn it, I really do need a carrier, too, he realized. There was no way he could carry the basket and basin at the same time – the basin itself required two hands.

Breathing a heavy sigh, he picked up the baby in her basket and carried her to the door outside, then pushed the door open with his shoulder and set her just outside the door. Returning to the basin, he grabbed it and did the same thing. The alley was gross, he realized then. No shit running down the street, but piles of garbage outside each door, only some of them in bins, provided their own smell. Resolving to ignore it, he picked up Mo's basket again and carried it down the alley towards the well, then set her down on a patch of earth that looked dry and returned for the basin, carrying it past Mo aways before going back for the baby.

Putting Mo down next to the basin after the second relay, he paused for a moment to breathe and heard a dry laugh. Looking up, he saw an old, tattered woman grinning at him from a chair where she sat, making some sort of fabric with a hook and yarn. For a moment, he just stared, taking in her wizened appearance before looking around her. She was surrounded by cats of all kinds, from a basket of tiny kittens and their mother to a skinny tomcat almost as gray and wizened as his mistress. Bizarrely, though the cats clambered on every surface, and her clothing was full of their hair, none of them interfered with her work as she pulled yarn from the balls and hooked it into her work.

And she was laughing at him. He scowled at her, but she just grinned.

“Need a couple extra limbs, don't you lad?” she asked him.

He stared at her. Extra limbs? “What I need are a carrier, and cash,” he told her irritably.

“Ah, but you wouldn't need a carrier if you had a couple more arms, would you?”

She's crazy, he decided. And he didn't have the time. Picking up the baby basket, again, he resumed his last relay to the well.

“Such temper young people have these days,” he heard the woman say behind him, perhaps to one of the cats. “No sense of humor.”

Telling himself to ignore her, he kept going, and finally made it to the well. And now to draw up the water. Which he knew, in theory, how to do. In practice – did one just drop the bucket in? Studying the thing for a moment, he found as expected that the rope had a hook on the end that attached it to the bucket, and wrapped around a thick plank attached to a crank, such that when one turned the crank one could raise and lower the bucket. He also found that the well was not nearly as deep as he'd expected, which would make his hauling easier. But if he just dropped the bucket in, he ran the risk of it falling off the hook and being lost.

Instead, then, he pushed the crank to lift the bucket over the well, then slowly let go of the rope. The bucket didn't budge. Huh. He'd expected it to fall. He snorted lightly. Wooden well. Right. He was an idiot. Because a world that actually hauls water from wells and stores it in wooden barrels clearly ought to have metal ball bearings. Taking hold of the crank in both hands, he pushed and pulled, fighting the friction, and managed to lower the bucket down until it sank into the water. The movement irritated his already-sore back, but it was doable, and eventually he managed to pull the full bucket back up to the surface. Remembering a scene from a movie in his childhood, in which a weird old wizard had released the crank before grabbing the bucket and promptly and comically lost his hard-won water, he reached out for the bucket with one hand and pulled it onto the stone lip of the well.

There, he thought, panting a little. Yey for fresh water. It was even clean. Or well, as clean as one could expect from unfiltered well water. Unhooking the bucket, he started to pour its contents on top of the diapers and washcloths in his basin before realizing that if he did so, the filthy diaper would contaminate the merely wet and make his job that much harder. Setting the bucket down, he pulled the dirtier items out of the basin and set them aside before once again picking up the bucket and pouring it over the wet diapers in the basin. It was enough to fill the basin roughly one-third of the way.

Two more, then. Actually, one should be enough. He wasn't going to want the carry a full basin all the way to the trench afterward. And he was going to have to do it twice, since he'd probably want to rinse, too.

Putting the bucket back on the hook, he repeated the process, once again pouring water into his basin.

And now for washing, he thought, staring down at the diapers floating in the basin. Oh, this is going to be fun. Steeling himself, he plunged both hands into the freezing water and started work on the cleaner items, swishing one of the diapers around in the water until it was soaked, then wringing it out again, before dropping it back in and grabbing a washcloth to do the same. Soon enough, the few items were as clean as they were going to get that way, and he wrung them out a final time before draping them over the handle of the baby's basket and reluctantly starting on the dirtier items.

A moment later a happy squeal drew his attention, and he looked over at the baby to see that she'd pulled down one of the washcloths, and was chewing and drooling on it, clearly very pleased with her acquisition. He sighed, remembering that the cloth had just been cleaned, but in reality he couldn't help but smile. She was just so happy.

“You realize that's just a washcloth, right?” he told her.

Naturally, she didn't respond, and abruptly his anxiety from before returned, threatening to turn his thoughts to a mindless panic. He had literally zero money. How in God's name was he supposed to keep her alive? Shaking off the thought, he threw himself into the washing as he had with the dishes before, using the smell of feces and the painful cold and the tiredness of his hands and arms to drive out the unpleasant thoughts.

By the time he was done, the water was thoroughly gross. He really would have to rinse everything. Dump the dirty in the trench, he remembered. And he had to carry both basin and baby between houses to the street to do so.

“Me'n my cats'll watch the lil'un for a minute or two, lad,” the weird old lady from before called. “You go dump that.”

Hearing the offer, he stood up to look at her. Her cats and she? And yet he was grateful enough for the offer that he couldn't really care. Thank goodness. Picking up Mo's basket, he carried her back to where the woman was still working with her hook, noticing as he did so that she'd changed colors from the drab brown she'd been using to a slightly more interesting reddish color.

“Just set her here,” she said, indicating the area next to her chair.

“Thank you,” he said, putting the basket down where she said. She smelled like cats and old clothing.

She grinned. “So you're capable of being polite after all.”

He flushed, annoyed. She's offered to watch the kid. Don't tick her off.

She just grinned further. “You go on, lad. Granny's got the lil'un.”

“Thanks,” he said, trying not to sound short. Granny?

But already he was focused on the next part of his task. The basin was heavy– almost too heavy for him to carry all the way at once. Worse, the water in it was filthy, and was going to end up all over him. His tee-shirt was already soaked with dish water, and splashed some with the laundry water, and no doubt full of his sweat, but at least he could try to keep it clean, if this was what it took to wash it. Removing it, he found that in addition to the water and everything else, the shirt smelled like him. Unsurprisingly, so did he. But the water was too filthy at that point to wash anything in. Laying the shirt over the lip of the well, he once again set about carrying the basin to the street.

Having emptied the basin, Marius brought it back, reclaimed Mo from the weird lady, and set about refilling it and rinsing everything. It didn't take long, and soon he was ready to dump it again. As he was lifting it, though, he realized that this time the water, somewhat cloudy from rinsing, was still probably cleaner than his shirt. And he'd have to haul again to do another set of laundry, since he couldn't pay for it. Hesitating a moment, he finally threw his shirt in, rinsing it out as best he could. Pausing for a moment before ringing it out, he shrugged and instead used the shirt to wash his face and upper body before rinsing it out once more, ringing it out carefully, and draping it over Mo's basket with the rest. She's getting wet, he realized suddenly, seeing some of the water drip.

But now he really did have to go dump the water. Once again, he brought Mo to Granny.

“Will you take her again, please?” he asked her.

She smiled again. “Yes of course,” she said. “Granny's still useful, despite her age. I'm eighty-three, you know.”

Am I supposed to be impressed by that, or would that be insulting? Awkward, he smiled. “Cool,” he said. “I'm sixteen.”

“And a daddy already, I see,” she answered.

Oh, don't call me that. “Uh...sorta,” he said awkwardly. “Thanks....I've got to dump the water.”

She nodded, an amused understanding in her smile, and he left Mo and headed off again to pick up the heavy basin and head for the street.

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When he got back from dumping the water, Marius found Granny cooing at a very fussy baby Mo. Groaning, he approached the two and picked the baby up under the arms to hold her up in front of his face.

“What now?” he asked her, frustrated. She seemed startled, and stared at him.

Granny frowned and spoke up sharply. “She's hungry and needs a diaper change,” she said. “Would you want to be lyin' in your own piss?”

Oh, and she blames me, Marius thought. “I'm just-” he snapped, before cutting off. Closing his eyes, he rolled his head back on his neck and took a deep breath, doing his best to release the frustration. It wasn't Granny's fault, and he certainly couldn't blame a five-month-old infant, tempting as it may be. The poor kid hadn't eaten in something like three hours. “Point to you,” he admitted tiredly, pulling the baby into his chest to cradle her more carefully in his arms.

“You're just exhausted,” Granny said more sympathetically. “Go on, Lad. You've a lot to do, I expect.”

“True,” Marius said, putting Mo back in her basket gently and transferring the wet laundry off of the handle and into the relatively clean basin where it wouldn't drip on anything. “Thank you,” he said to Granny, realizing as he did so that it was too short to sound sincere. Whatever. He couldn't do better. Picking up Mo's basket, he started his relays back to the inn.

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“The basin can jus' go back where it was, Lad,” Bighana said when he came back in. “And there's a rack in the closet upstairs if you want to hang yer clothes up to dry.” She was at the table this time, kneading some sort of dough. Another batch was apparently baking – the whole kitchen was hot as a furnace, and smelled like bread. Ran had apparently gone off somewhere. Hopefully she was playing.

“Thanks,” Marius said, shoving the basin back under the table and heading back out the door to pull Mo inside. The diaper bag was where he'd left it in the corner by the door. He threw it over his shoulder and grabbed his laundry and Mo's basket again before heading out of the stifling kitchen and dragging himself up the stairs.

As he got to the top, he realized that she hadn't told him which room was the closet he was looking for. It proved easy to find, though, as the corridor was a straight shot and only two doors were not labeled with a number. The first was the privy – he could smell it before he even opened the door. The second he guessed was the closet, and he was right – it was full of clean linens and cleaning supplies, and had a rack that had to be the one Bighana had mentioned. He hung up his laundry and headed the rest of the way to his room.

The sight of his bed was almost painful. No, no sleep. Change and feed baby. Then talk to Harlot, hopefully obtain job number two, change and feed baby, eat dinner, change and feed baby, then maybe sleep. And you don't get that job, you better hope begging is effective.

But once again, panicking wasn't going to be helpful, either. Right now, he had to feed the baby. That was all. Feed the baby.

And he was upstairs, and he'd forgotten to get water for her formula. Groaning, he grabbed one of her bottles and a packet of formula and headed back downstairs, leaving Mo in her basket in his room.

The rice water by this point was cold, but Bighana already had some more on the stove for him. He made up Mo's formula carefully before heading back up again.

Apparently his departure was the last straw, as far as the baby was concerned. He could hear her wailing before he got up the stairs.

“I'm sorry!” he called back to her. “I'm coming!” It felt idiotic, to be yelling at her from all the way down the corridor, but it was all he could do to cope with the wailing. God, I'm so not ready for this, he thought. And yet he had no options. There has got to be a way to find her family, he thought.

Finally, he got to the room and put the bottle down on the tiny table next to his bed before picking the squalling baby in both arms, settling her on his lap, and taking up the bottle again to push it into her mouth.

This time, she found the nipple of the bottle and quieted instantly, sucking down the warm mixture as fast as she could. He breathed a sigh of relief and readjusted her so that one of his hands supported her head and another held the bottle.

Both of her tiny arms had been curled to her chest, but as he watched she reached out and patted the side of the bottle with one tiny hand. Lifting a finger from his grip on the bottle, he stroked the hand gently. The fingers closed on his in a strong grip, and once again, she looked like an angelic being, completely innocent and utterly incapable of causing mayhem.

“Yeah, right,” he told her, smiling just a bit at the grip on his finger. “You and I both know the truth, don't we?”

She just kept eating.

“Uh huh,” he said. “Totally innocent.”

Jesus, I've gotta keep this kid alive, he realized suddenly. I have to.

She was a burden. Lliannan had shoved her at him without so much as a by-your-leave or even a warning. Without her, he could have gotten by with the food and housing he'd already earned for long enough to find his way back out of wherever he was. He wouldn't have to look for jobs based on the requirement that he brought a child on board.

She's a real darling l'il thing, Bighana had said. But cute didn't cut it. Puppies and kittens were cute, probably cuter, actually – they could play with you, and didn't drool. But nevertheless if Mo had been a puppy or a kitten, he'd've left her on somebody else's doorstep in a heartbeat, destined to die or not. Things die, and it wasn't his fault if they did. But Mo was not a puppy or a kitten. Mo had little hands and feet, a little face. Two arms, two legs, opposable thumbs, facial expressions. Smiles and tears. She was a person. Someday, if he could keep her alive, she'd walk, talk. It didn't matter that he didn't want the responsibility, or that it wasn't his fault. He had to keep her alive.

Focus. Don't panic. For now, she was fed. Now he'd burp and change her, and then he'd ask Harlot about other job ideas. Pulling the empty bottle out of her mouth, he wondered for a moment if she was actually getting enough before dismissing the worry. There wasn't anything he could do about it if she wasn't. Well, other than run out of her food even faster. But he wasn't going to run out of her food. He was going to get a job. And first, he had to burp her and change her diaper. Picking her up, he pulled a washcloth out of the diaper bag and threw it over his shoulder with one hand before positioning the baby on his shoulder and patting her firmly. This time, she didn't spit up much, and he was able to just fold up the washcloth for later use and get started on changing her.

He'd shoved her changing pad in the diaper bag, and it was easy to find again. He laid it out on his bed before putting her down on top of it and removing her diaper. It was just wet, and he just rolled it up and put it on his bedside table.

Shoot. He was supposed to clean her off before putting the next diaper on, and he hadn't gotten a wet washcloth when he'd gotten the formula. Just when I thought I was approaching competence. But he'd just cleaned some washcloths, and they'd still be wet. Leaving the old diaper where it was, he carried the half-naked baby back to the closet and fetched one of them back to his room.

Soon enough, Mo was clean and dry and fed, and he was ready to go talk to Harlot. Except that clean, dry, and fed apparently meant that it was time for Mo to fall asleep on him.

“You realize that that's annoying?” he told her, shifting her a little in his arms. “You could show a little gratitude before deciding I make a good sofa.”

Sighing, he picked her up carefully and started to put her in her basket. At first it seemed to work, but as soon as his hands left her, her eyes popped open and she started to cry. He picked her up again quickly, but it appeared the damage was done, and she cried pathetically as he held her to his chest, bouncing a little like he'd seen women do with other unhappy children. Jesus, what's wrong now? She was fed. She was clean. Two minutes ago she'd been ready to fall asleep. What did it matter if he put her down?

Fine. Whatever. If he had to carry her for her to sleep, he'd carry her. At least then she'd be quiet. Eventually.

Hearing the tone of his own thoughts, he sighed again, feeling guilty. He really didn't want to be the type of person that would resent a child's need for care. And he was all the kid had right now. If he resented her – there were other ways than poverty to make a child's life hell. Adjusting her gently, he pushed her up on his shoulder and stroked her hair with a hand, rocking back and forth.

“Okay, baby,” he said. “Okay.”

I'm not keeping her, he reminded himself. I just have to keep her alive until I can find her family. In a foreign city that didn't even have plumbing. Oh yeah, sure, he thought. I'll just have them put her in the computer system. Maybe they'll connect her with her parents in another district. What was he going to do, go door-to-door?

Go to the Elite, he remembered. What were the Elite? Maybe Harlot would know? Lliannan had said the word as if he should understand it, so maybe it was common knowledge, here?

As usual, thinking of the city he'd come in from was strange. I'm not hallucinating, he thought, finally. It had just been too damn long. The things he was seeing should've at least changed. Maybe, maybe, he'd still be able to find his way out of this place, get back to Malcolm- I can't take a baby to Malcolm! Am I crazy? - take the baby to a police station, get back to Malcolm, and resume his own life, but he'd have to find his way out. He wasn't going to just 'wake up'.

Funny how this morning, he'd actually thought that he had problems; that his life was difficult. Oh poor, pitiful me. My mother abandoned me and her husband's a drunk. Certainly it sounded awful, but it had nothing on his situation now. He stopped short, realizing. It had all sorts of connections to his situation now, actually. Mo's mother was gone, leaving her with him – a man not her father, with no real desire to keep her. You owe me everything, you hear? I didn't have to keep you! Your bitch of a mother-” He forced himself to smile. Clearly, the solution is to get drunk and blame the baby for the rest of my life. Unless his mother had left because Malcolm was a drunk? He'd always wondered which direction that went.

Focusing back on the baby on his shoulder, he realized she'd quieted. “Good girl,” he told her softly. “That's a good girl. You sleep.” Sitting back down on the bed, he lay back himself, resigned to stay put for just a moment with her. Once again, he found himself messing with her hair, pulling the little curls out one at a time and watching them spring back into place. Purple hair, he thought irrelevantly. That's different. Maybe I should dye mine.

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A short time later, lying on his back with Mo sleeping on his chest, Marius realized that he was falling asleep himself. And he really couldn't afford the time. Job, he remembered. Gotta get a job.

Careful not to jostle the sleeping baby, he hauled himself to a sit, nearly hitting his head of the sloped ceiling above his bed.

Try again, on the sleeping maybe? It was loud and hot downstairs in the kitchen. She'd probably sleep better here, if he could get her to do it. She was pretty thoroughly asleep, now. Maybe he'd get away with it? Tentatively, he leaned down, not pulling Mo from his chest until the last minute, and tucked her into the basket, finding himself holding his breath as he released her and stood up.

One second...three seconds...five seconds...Finally Marius let his breath out. He'd succeeded. Feeling like he'd jinx it if he stayed too long, he left the room quickly, careful to close the door quietly on his way out. Just outside, he realized that leaving the door unlocked with the child and all of his current worldly possessions inside might not be smart. The key was in the pocket of his jeans, and he locked the door before heading downstairs.

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A/N: That's it for now!! Hope you like!!