<CW> Child Neglect?

She hadn't even realized it until he handed her the wet cloth that she could clean herself up with, not that she got hit by her own vomit, thank God... but he was fathering her. She had the cloth poised at her mouth for a moment as she took in and started to process the scene. Now, one has to give Magnus credit where credit was due, he did father Pearl to a certain extent... but had he ever physically cleaned up after her throwing up? No. Had he ever ushered her to a seat? No... And had he ever really talked to her while she was sick? Or any other time that turmoil was involved, and been calm the whole time? No. Never. Magnus would have looked at her with great disgust at the very sound of her gagging and told a maid to put her to bed before she dirtied the Persian rug he'd just had placed in his domain. And then she got to thinking about all the times he hadn't been there, and that there was more pomp for the times he was there as if he was trying to be acknowledged for being there when he never really... truly was there. Pearl's eyes kind of grew a little darker with the realization that what she had thought of as normal seemed to be a lie. She felt swindled more so in that one moment than she had since everything began to unravel.

"I'm afraid I haven't been feeling myself for a few days," she replied after a long time, her voice low and haggard with the first vomit of her pregnancy that she was in denial about or maybe wasn't recognizing the signs since she'd never been given that talk that all kids need at some point. She looked to Bill and she looked as if she would cry, even her eyes were kind of wet looking, but she was afraid if she cried, he might yell at her to stop being hysterical... In fact, she remembered a few times how he may have said that to her sisters, and what about her mother? It wasn't helping the sour feel in her stomach. She wanted to launch herself at her father in law, bury her face against his shoulder and let it out, but she knew that would just not do. So instead, she sort of just dropped her hands into her lap and started to crumple and tug at the rag while a whole world of hurt and realization went through her way too fast at once.

But in the end, she did break. The girl closed her eyes with a wince when the tears of grief, of anger, of all these things that compounded over the last year alone just came rushing at her all because a man who wasn't her father just fathered her better in one fell swoop than her actual father. "I'm sorry," she said and then as if in a tight squeak, depending on whether he let her or not, she was going to run so he would not see her cry.