[identity profile] dried-frog-pill.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] onepiece_300
Title: Support Group
Rating: G
Media: fic
Word Count: 300
Pairing/Characters: Bellemere, references to Nami and Nojiko
Prompt: Family~

Not for the first time does Bellemere wonder if she’s made a horrible mistake.

She stubbornly insists to Gen-san and the others that she’s perfectly capable – she was a Marine, after all, do they honestly think she’s completely irresponsible? – that she’s an adult now, not some punk kid. She can handle this.

Handle being a mother.

It’s become a terrifying word, the word that’s never say aloud and yet is whispered in the way they look to her for approval, screamed for in the tears from bruised knees or hurt feelings and clung to in the dark after a nightmare. The word that carries so much responsibility, so much possibility for failure.

She smiles and insists they’re fine, even as she counts every last belli. She’d never admit it, but she’s thankful she learned how to cook, to stretch the resources she has. She teaches herself how to sew clothing, and ends up teaching the girls the rope knots she learned as a Marine.

And yet she can’t quite escape the feeling that she’s play-acting, that somehow she’s still the punk kid who deep down is only pretending to be all grown up. That she’s hurting Nojiko and Nami in ways she’ll never be able to fix, not with mikan dinners or altered hand-me-downs or comforting words.

Despite all her protests to the contrary, she needs reassurance that what she’s doing is right.

Reassurance that comes in the way Nami smiles. In the way Nojiko laughs. In the way her daughters are so quick to wrap their arms around her, an embrace so warm she wonders how she could have lived without it. Without them.

It’s still terrifying, being a mother. The doubt doesn’t quite disappear. But the strength she needs is there, in the warmth of her little family.

Date: 2009-02-02 05:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] printfogey.livejournal.com
Wow... now that I think about it, I can totally see Bellemere thinking that, that she has that need for reassurance. I really like the insight and nuance in this: since we're used to seeing Bellemere from Nami's and Nojiko's memories, it's easy to just picture her as the perfact mother and forget she had insecurities too, which just makes her all the more great.

But ow, though - I just watched Nami's past on the anime for the first time on the Funi DVD, tears actually streaming down, so now I had to control myself as I read this...

Date: 2009-02-02 06:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] devlinnreiko.livejournal.com
*needs to get more general icons*

Awwww. This was sweet. All the little details and such. ^__^

Date: 2009-02-03 01:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] synvamp.livejournal.com
*Awwwwwwww*!!!

Date: 2009-02-03 06:49 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] dethorats
This was wonderful! Bellemere's feelings just seem so natural and right and I feel like you gave a great glimpse into her struggles, into how hard she had to work but how much she gained in return.

Date: 2009-02-07 06:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quakey.livejournal.com
That ... was awesome. By awesome I mean believable and sweet and oh-so-true, especially for anyone contemplating motherhood.

*mems*

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