Tu Es Ma Lumière

161 - Doctorate *Modern*

/

Side Note - Same AU as Part 69

/

Everything is quiet. Everything is still. Everything is dark. Everything is content. Everything is warm. Everything is safe.

Until, of course, the constant blaring and loud sounds that emanate from Francis' phone. It vibrates loudly upon the bedside table, jerking him awake. He groans, his arms tightening around the taut little waist that belonged to his wife, hoping that if he pushed his face into Mary's dark hair enough, it would push out the sound and allow him to fall back into the luxurious pond of deep slumber.

Needless to say, it doesn't work. He's forced to remove himself from the warm, safe, content cocoon they've made in their large bed and sit up in the cool room. He pouts, rubbing the backs of his eyes with his fists. Irritated, he sends the phone a scowl, blindly reaching for it. He yanks it from his charging point, not even bothering to look at who it was.

"What?" he grunts, shoving the phone onto the side of his head.

He's met with a loud noise of commotion in the background, the caller practically crying out the words.

"Is Mary with you?!" It's Charles, he realises. But his secondborn younger brother is calling from Claude's phone. "Please-please come, Francis! We need help!"

Now he's awake.

"What? Charles, what's going on?" Francis asks, pushing his messy blonde locks from his face. The fourteen year old boy sounds terrified, he realises. It's probably not helped by the frantic yelling and pushing of furniture in the background, either. He wonders what's going on, but is even more curious by the fact that his little brother called for his wife. He hoped it wasn't anything serious, Mary's been doing eighteen plus hour shifts at the hospital, she needed to rest when she got home. He loathed to wake her when she so needed the sleep.

"Francis, it-it's Claude!" Charles cries out. Francis inhales lightly. Claude, his eighteen year old sister who was every inch her mothers daughter, who had gotten herself pregnant by Leith during a brief split between he and Greer. The aftermath was nasty, even worse when Greer found out that it was her fiancee who would father Mary's sister in law's child. It caused quite the ruckus in the family unit, even worse when considering the seven plus year age gap between Leith and Claude. She was almost eight months gone now, and thankfully, Greer had broken things off with James in hopes of reconciling with Leith. Things had been strained between Mary's closest friend and her future husband, but they almost seemed lighter the last time Francis saw the two of them. If it could be called that, however.

It's probably because Francis is so exhausted that he realises too late that his pregnant sister had called for his wife in the middle of the night. The same wife who happened to be a jack of all trades in the medical industry.

"What?" he asks, casting a look at his wife. He may have to wake her, no matter how much he doesn't want to. "Is she alright? The baby-"

"F-Francis, Claude's bleeding!" the poor thing, he sounds so scared. "She's yelling in pain and keeps holding her stomach, she's screaming for Mary. C-Can you come? And bring Mary, too?" he asks. Francis can barely hear him over the screaming in the background and the quietness of his frightened voice, but he manages to get the job done.

"Alright, little brother. Have you called an ambulance?"

"Y-yeah. Father did, but the woman on the other line says they won't be able to come because of a snowstorm. You-you and Mary and Bash live close, can you come? Mary's good at stuff like this. R-remember when she found out about Father's brain thing, and when Henri and Hercules were really sick with their lungs, even when Emone and Henrietta were sick as babies?" Charles has the tendency to ramble when he's frightened, but who can blame him for his words? One, he was scared, seeing his elder sister bleeding heavily and crying out. Two, time and again, Mary had proven herself to be essential when dealing with matters of the medical body. Multiple times, she had caught things she wasn't even looking for in the Valois' family bloodline. Hell, Catherine's own mother wouldn't end up in a wheelchair thanks to Mary's quick abservatory skills when the elder woman had a slight limp. And once, she had practically saved Francis himself from death, catching a cyst behind his ear before it could pass into his brain. Not to mention all the times that she had bandaged Bash up when he took a rough tumble from his horses during rambunctious and spontaneous rides. The young woman who married him when they were in uni was practically a genius for all things medical, having quite substantial certificates in just over ninety percent of medical fields. Her co-workers even referred to her as Jack when they saw her, knowing how well she had mastered most of the fields. Jack of all trades, mater of none be damned.