Chapter 3.7 - A Long-Awaited Event

“Are you sure you’re still alright?”

Madeline smiled at her husband of a year. “I’m just as fine as I was five minutes ago, the last time you asked me. I have done this before, you know.”

“I know you have, but I haven’t. It’s only natural that I worry about you, you know. Do you need me to do anything for you?”

She laughed. “How about we go for a little walk?” When he looked doubtful, she took his hand. “The baby isn’t here yet. We can still enjoy the fresh air for a little longer before we’re cooped up with a newborn.”

He finally acquiesced, and they walked down the quiet road outside their house, enjoying each other’s company. Jonah was at kindergarten, so they didn’t have to worry about anyone but themselves.

Madeline finally broke the silence. “How’s your campaign going?” She had quit her job as his assistant after their quiet little wedding. He could support them all, so why bother working?

“It’s coming along pretty well. At this rate, I’m poised to win the primary in a couple of weeks, and it should be a breeze after that.”

She nodded contentedly, enjoying the feeling of the wind on her face, and Alaric’s hand in hers, and… oh. Well, that wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

“Alaric?”

“Yes, Madeline?”

“The baby’s coming.”

After that, everything was a frantic rush. When they finally had their baby home, though, Madeline smiled at Alaric. “How does it feel to be a father?”

He smiled back. “Not much different than it felt to be a stepfather.”

Still, when they had the baby settled in her crib, Alaric couldn’t deny the warm feeling in his chest. “Amanda Doe. Yes… I think I could get used to being a father.”

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Alaric felt a lot less warm inside when he was called into Tori’s office a week later. When he arrived, she was hidden behind the newspaper she was reading.

“You called me in?”

“Yes.” She slapped the paper down on her desk, and he saw that she was angry. “Did you think you could keep this a secret?”

He looked down at the headline. “Mayor Alaric Doe Steals Brother’s Wife!” It proclaimed in bold typeface. The picture beneath it was of him and Madeline on their walk the day Amanda was born.

He looked back up at Tori. “To be perfectly honest, yes.”

She looked incredulous. “You know, you’re a lot of things, but I never thought you were stupid. She’s pregnant!”

“Actually, our daughter was born the day that picture was taken. I have a couple of pictures, if you want to see.”

Tori just shook her head. “I warned you, Doe. I told you that if you stepped out of line, you’d be gone. This… you didn’t just step, you took a great flying leap out of line, and you’re not even trying to deny it. I’m sorry, but you are no longer welcome in this building.”

Alaric stared at her. “I can’t even come to City Hall?”

She winced. “Honestly… I would suggest finding another place to live. I don’t think you’ll be very welcome in Sunset Valley any longer.”

Alaric looked back down at the article that had ruined his life, and frowned. What was he supposed to do now?

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Even as Alaric pondered that article, he never stopped to consider that there might have been someone behind it. He had never been particularly paranoid, but it might have served him better if he was. Because someone was behind the article, and that very same someone had a plan for what Alaric should do next…

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Alaric was still in a bad mood when he picked the mail out of the mailbox that afternoon on his way back to the house. When he got inside, Madeline was in the living room, trying to hush Amanda back to sleep.

“Shhh. Shhh. I don’t know what you want from me, baby. Shhh. You’re home early, Alaric.”

“We’re moving.”

“That’s good. We could use some more space. I think a couple of the houses on Sunnyside Boulevard are for sale…”

“No. We’re moving to…” He paused as one of the flyers in the mail caught his eye. Explore a landscape where all you're really required to be is yourself! He made a split-second decision. “Midnight Hollow.”

Author's Note: The event referred to in the title could be the birth of Amanda, the end of this plot line, or the move to Midnight Hollow. Take your pick. Also, it's time to officially introduce you to our first two heir candidates:

Jonah Doe came into the house an absent-minded genius, and is now neurotic.

Amanda Doe is definitely a loner, and I'm about 85% sure that she is also a light sleeper. I will confirm the next time I open the save. She is also blond. It was a mutant color, but Madeline's father was Geoffrey Landgraab, so I did my best to give Amanda his hair color. I think I did alright.

For the record, I rolled for five children this generation. I plan to do the heir poll while they are all teens, and since Jonah is already a good bit older than Amanda, the other three children will be coming at you very quickly, since they all have to have a fully developed personality and plot by the heir poll. The previous two generations both had two fewer children than this one, and they were all born by this point in the generation, but there was this pesky thing called plot that I had to work through this time. The kids should all be born before chapter 11 (they're all born in my game), but there will be a lot of them very close together, and I won't blame you if you have to come up with some sort of mnemonic device to keep them all straight. Next chapter: we move to Midnight Hollow!

Chapter 3.6 - We Need to Talk

“I know I said I didn’t want to talk yet, but…”

“We’ve done a lot of not talking, so now you want to talk.”

Madeline grinned at him, a little playfully. “That’s about the sum of it, yeah.”

Alaric smiled back at her. “What exactly did you want to talk about?”

Her face grew serious. “I can’t stay with him anymore.”

“I know this sounds terrible, but I was hoping you’d say that.”

She laughed. “Of course you were. But seriously… Beckett and I don’t have anything in common, and it will honestly ruin both our lives if we stay together.”

“And what about us?”

“We have everything in common, and we’ll live our best lives together.”

“I couldn’t agree more. So we’ll tell him tomorrow?”

“We?”

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t use some moral support.”

She thought about it, then shrugged. “Alright. Wait, tomorrow?”

“It needs to happen as soon as possible. And honestly… you’ve been out all night. I think the cat is probably already out of the bag.”

She sighed. “I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I? I should have just married you years ago. It would have solved so many problems.”

Alaric embraced her. “We should rectify that as soon as possible.”

She nodded, then pulled back. “Wait… did you just ask me to marry you?”

“As soon as your divorce is finalized, yes.”

Madeline laughed softly. “Okay.” Then she frowned. “Now we just have to tell Beckett.”

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“Madeline! I’ve been worried sick. Where have you been all night?”

When he saw who was following her, he frowned. “Alaric? What are you doing here?”

Madeline bit her lip, glancing at Alaric for support. “Beckett… we have something to tell you.”

Alaric reached out and took her hand. Beckett immediately focused in on their hands, then looked back up at their faces. “What’s… what’s going on?”

“I’m leaving you, Beckett. I’m sorry.”

“You’re leaving me… for him.”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

Beckett nodded slowly, seeming to take that in. “How long has this been going on?”

Madeline hedged. “Well… that’s a complicated question… I mean…”

“So, since high school.” He gave an ugly laugh. Then he quieted. “Jonah isn’t mine, is he.”

Madeline frowned. “Of course he’s yours!”

Beckett just shook his head. “You can’t really think I believe you. The kid looks just like him!”

“He looks a lot like you, too! It’s really just a coincidence.”

Beckett hadn’t stopped shaking his head. “Just go, Madeline. Take the kid with you. I don’t want anything left here to remind me of you and your affair.”

“You can’t mean that!”

He met her gaze, hate glowing in his eyes. “You don’t want him, do you? Fine. Consider it your punishment. But I will not have your child in my house. I’ll be back in an hour. By the time I walk in this door, you and all of your things had better be gone.”

He stalked out.

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An hour later, Madeline and Alaric had barely finished moving her belongings and her son into Alaric’s small house.

He frowned. “I know that there isn’t much space, but…”

She smiled at him. “It’s okay. We’ve got each other now. Everything will be alright.”

Author's Note: So, the Family Structure roll is... Step Children! As I'm sure everyone saw coming a mile away. And here's another thing: the entire reason for the whole Beckett/Madeline/Alaric love triangle was so I could have a Step Children roll where every child was eligible for heir. So, surprise! The first heir candidate for Generation 4 is Jonah! And don't worry, I plan to give him just as much plot as I give Alaric's biological children.

Also, while I'm revealing rolls, the Miscellaneous Fun is Live Your Trait. Alaric's chosen trait is Ambitious, so... I hope you can see that coming through. Next chapter: we finally see the last of this plotline... and Sunset Valley!

Chapter 3.5 - Growing Frustration

“Madeline! You’re home early.”

She nodded without making eye contact. “My boss realized that I wasn’t getting anything done in my current state and sent me home.” She’d never told Beckett that Alaric was her boss. She’d never told Beckett a lot of things, really.

“That’s great! You can watch Jonah today.”

“Beckett, I’m exhausted. I really just need to rest. Why can’t you watch him today? You’d have to if I was at work like I was supposed to be.”

Beckett sighed. “I was going to watch him if I had to, but I got a big order from one of my best customers yesterday, and I’ll get much better pay if I get it to him before this weekend. I was planning on going out for a few hours on Saturday, but now I can go out all day.”

“Beckett, it’s January. You really want to go out and fish? And I’m of no use to anyone as tired as I am.”

“He’s still asleep, so you can nap until he wakes up. And there are some kinds of fish that like weather this cold. I’ll see you tonight!” Beckett slipped out the door before Madeline could find another argument.

She barely made it upstairs before she collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

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Madeline woke up a couple of hours later to a pair of big dark eyes blinking owlishly at her. She had been a little bit scared the first time she’d woken up like that, but she was used to it by now.

“Mama! You’s home!”

“You are home, Jonah.” She corrected gently.

“I’s home?” He tilted his head quizzically, increased his resemblance to a bird.

“No, I am - forget about it. Can you let Mama up?”

Her son scrambled away from the bed obediently, and she rose slowly, cataloguing her level of tiredness. She determined that it wasn’t unbearable and walked down to the kitchen so she could make herself some coffee. Of course, she first got Jonah some cereal, which he devoured so fast that she could suddenly imagine him as a teenager, eating them out of house and home.

After the coffee, she felt a little bit more like a sim being, so she decided it was time to teach Jonah some grammar rules. It was slow, frustrating work, and she gave up around noon. She played with him for a couple of hours, but by two in the afternoon, she was tired, frustrated, and desperate for some form of conversation that wasn’t toddler speech. She tried once more to get Jonah to properly conjugate the verb ‘to be’, but he was militant.

“I’m tired of this, baby.”

“No, you is tired of this. And I’s not a baby.”

In the mood to pick a fight, she texted Beckett. Your son is absurdly stubborn. I blame you.

He didn’t text her back for an hour, which didn’t improve her mood, and when the message finally came, its contents sent her already fraying temper plummeting into rage and despair.

It seemed fairly innocent, if slightly combative. Where did you get the idea that I was the stubborn one out of the two of us?

He was right, of course. Beckett had always been easy-going to a fault. What made her so angry was the fact that she hadn’t really been thinking about him at all. It was the other Doe brother who was the proverbial immovable object when you disagreed with him. It was the other Doe brother she thought of every time she looked at her son.

She stared at her baby boy, murmuring under her breath. “Why do you have to look so much like Alaric?” Because he really did. She’d seen Alaric’s baby pictures, at least the ones Beckett was also in. The only real difference was the freckles.

So between the many frustrations of her day, she was in a truly terrible mood by the time Beckett got home. She managed to contain herself until they got Jonah to bed, but as soon as they were back downstairs, she whirled on him.

“Don’t you ever leave me alone with him for the whole day again.”

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

“It was quite possibly the worst day of my life so far.”

“And yet you do that to me every single day.”

Her eyes widened, and she suddenly saw the whole picture. “You did this on purpose! To… to teach me a lesson or something!”

“Did it work?”

“No, because it’s different.”

“How, Madeline? How is it different? I’m willing to bet that your day went a lot like mine does every day.”

“It’s different because you wanted this! Don’t deny it, you always wanted to be a family man, roughing it in the woods every day. I wanted to be a pro athlete’s wife, living in the lap of luxury, maybe pursuing a figure skating career, with enough staff that I would never have to do anything myself if I didn’t want to. Instead, I’m the glorified secretary of a small town politician who has to watch the baby, cook, and clean when I get home! I never wanted this, Beckett!”

He stood silent for a moment. “Then why did you marry me?”

She just shook her head. “I really don’t know.” She headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. And don’t you dare try to follow me.”

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Alaric wasn’t really surprised by the knock on his door that evening. “Madeline.”

“Alaric. Can I come in?”

“Of course. You can always do whatever you like when I’m around.”

She grinned at him and followed him inside.

Author's Note: Maybe it's strange, but I actually really enjoyed writing this chapter. I feel like it's been a long time coming. Also, I love taking pictures of Beckett, and it was great to finally introduce you to Jonah. I have plans for that child.

In case you were wondering, I did absolutely nothing to influence Jonah's appearance. (He was also named by Story Progression, but it was a fine name, so I kept it.) When I went to look at him in CAS after he aged to toddler, that was what he looked like. Beckett is his father, he just happens to be almost an exact face clone of Alaric. It's excellent for plot purposes. Next chapter: the truth comes out!