#soninlaw

"But…" she turned back to Ben, chewing on her lip. "Zach just woke up. What if he starts crying? Or someone comes by?"

"I'm here," Ben reminded her. He put his hand up to her face to cup her cheek. "Listen, I got him. I won't let anything hurt him. Hades is going to take you out for the day. You need to be away from the castle."

"You have meetings," Mal protested. Ben's hands moved to her arms as he began to guide her towards the door. "Don't you? We can't leave him alone – he'll hate us!"

"He's six weeks old, Mal," Ben sighed. There were traces of exhaustion in his voice, but they weren't from any lack of sleep. Zach would routinely wake up once every night and Mal was so keen on him that Ben was never able to hear the crying before his wife had woken up and stolen the baby from under his nose. "Listen, you need to go and be away for a little bit. I've got Zach – don't you trust me with him?"

Mal's eye twitched. "Yes, of course. You always take good care of him, but Ben, don't you think-"

Hades put an arm around Mal's shoulders and her arguments ended in a little squeak. Her eyes were still wide though, and she stopped focusing on Ben and let her attention fix on a point over his shoulder. Ben carefully stepped in between her and the baby swing before she could summon in. Hades continued edging her out.

"You've got the-"

"I've got everything Mal."

"And you know where the-"

"I know where everything is, Mal."

"And if he starts to-"

"Mal. I live here. He's my son too. I promise you I know how to take care of him and I know how you like to do things with him."

Mal's lower lip trembled. Hades opened her hand for her and put another ring of keys in it. "Go on, go start the car. My son-in-law and I are going to talk for a minute."

"I want to say bye!" Mal burst back past the doorframe in a sudden panic and rushed back past Ben before he could catch her. With one arm out where Mal had passed through two seconds before, Ben took a long, slow, deep breath. Hades pressed his lips together.

"It's this bad?" he asked softly, nodding to where Mal was kneeling on the ground in front of the baby swing.

Ben pressed both hands together in front of his face and took another deep breath. "At least she's not refusing to be around him and doing this," he reasoned. "But yeah, she's been like this for the last two months. Worse at night and when anyone comes around."

"And when you say anyone…"

"She cried when my mom picked him up for a photo."

"Did you film it?"

"Evie did. It was funny at first, but after a month of her still being in shock and everything…" Ben glanced over his shoulder, shaking his head. Mal was chewing on her lip on the floor with one hand balanced out as if she was going to brush her fingers down Zach's cheek. Ben knew she wouldn't – she was terrified to touch him.

"Well, at least she likes him-"

"No, she's terrified of him."

"She can't be terrified of her own-"

"She thinks she's giving off some sort of invisible influence that is going to corrupt him and make him evil."

Hades went silent, staring between Ben and Mal as if they both had two heads. Ben sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I think… she's going back into some sort of Isle state. She's… jumping whenever anyone enters the room, she's not sleeping or eating or taking care of herself, she's obsessing over everything about him… it's bad. It's like… she's literally become a dragon protecting her horde, and she's reverting back to when she had to protect everything she owned and fight everyone around her."

"What?" Mal called from in front of the swing. They'd been whispering, but the word "fight" had her swiveling around to focus. "What's wrong? Is someone coming?"

"No, we just need to head out," Hades replied. Ben sighed and walked over to the baby swing. He forced his arm through Mal's and turned her away from the cooing, content baby in the swing. Mal allowed herself to be turned around but then began trying to twist back around to make sure Zach was okay. Only Ben's arm kept her moving forward as she craned her neck to make sure nothing had happened to Zach in the five seconds she'd been facing the other way.

Hades took her other arm as soon as she was close enough and forcibly helped her over the doorframe. "C'mon, Mallie. I haven't seen you since Zach was born – we're going to go out and Ben is going to have some father-son time with him. It'll be really good for the kid – you want him to be attached to his dad, right?"

"Yes, Ben's great with him, but-" Hades had to take her other arm to keep her from wiggling out of his grip. "Do we have enough diapers at home? Maybe we should send out for more."

"No, we're okay Mal," Ben used his foot to edge her foot out into the hall. "You're going out with your dad and he's going to stay here with me."

"Does he have enough blankets? What if he gets cold and gets sick and-"

"Mal, it's summer. He's fine."

"Does he still have his gloves so he doesn't scratch-"

"Goodbye, Mal."

The door shut with a rather final thud and Hades heard Ben turn the lock. Mal began to hyperventilate. In theory, if she wasn't panicking as much as she was, she could have easily gotten away from him and used an unlocking spell and then he and Ben would really have been in trouble, but as it was, she was easy enough to lead down the hall and into the front hall of the palace.

"What happens if he starts to cry and Ben doesn't know what to do?" Mal babbled as they got to the front steps, only about ten feet from the car. She began to show a little resistance now, refusing to move her feet as she continued looking back over her shoulder. "What if he needs me?"

"Oh, now Ben knows what he's doing," Hades held her arm a little tighter as he continued pulling her towards the car. "He taught you how to hold him, remember?"

"Yes but maybe he forgot-"

Hades opened the door and helped her in. He pushed the lock down on her door before he closed it, which was a good thing because, by the time he'd gotten in on his side, she was already trying to open it.

"Hey," he snapped a little and grabbed her hand to squeeze as he quickly put the car in gear. "Ben's got this. He has everything he needs. And you and I are going to go out for ice cream."

They started rolling and Mal let out a little breath as the front door slowly moved out of sight. "Yes, okay," she agreed in a tiny voice before fumbling over her shoulder for the seat belt. "Ben's got this."

"He does," Hades agreed. He watched her settle down a little bit more, wringing her hands and shaking as she took a few deep breaths.

They got out of the palace and Hades figured her anxiety had leveled off as much as it was going to. He drummed his fingers on the wheel – would it be better to start a conversation about Ben or about being the queen or about Zach or what?

"What's on your mind?" he asked finally.

Mal let out a little laugh. "Oh, I'm just worried about Zach," she replied, holding a hand to her head. "He's just so little and I don't want anyone coming by while I'm gone."

"I'm sure Ben won't let anyone in."

"Well, he might. He's not as cautious as I am."

"I saw an article about how you didn't want to let anyone around him. Exceptional Exposure said you were hoarding the crown prince from the public."

"Oh wow… the public can go screw itself… he is not even two months old, he has the rest of his life to be their crown prince, and they do not need to pester my baby."

Hades laughed and then chewed on his cheek. "I remember your mom didn't want anyone else to see you after you were born either."

Mal almost jumped right out of her skin. "What?" she demanded. Her skin was pasty white.

Hades realized he might have touched on a bad subject. "Well, she just didn't want to share you." He tried to laugh it off. "She used to cuddle with you for hours while you slept."

Mal relaxed a little, but she'd seized the door handle and didn't seem intent on releasing it soon.

"I think it's something a lot of new moms do," Hades continued. "They're just new and hard to share."

Mal nodded slowly. "I just… worry that something will happen if I leave him," she agreed.

"Well, Ben's got this. He's, you know, "the guy". The one who is good with kids and knows how to calm them down and he's good with them. He'll be fine."

Mal chewed her cheek, nodded, and turned to look outside the window. Hades watched her out of the corner of his eye as she traced the outlines of the passing buildings and looked sad. After a minute, he leaned over and poked her. "Do you not like that Ben's good with him?"

Mal spun so fast he was surprised her head didn't pop off and keep going. "No!" she exclaimed. "Oh, no! Ben is.. wonderful. He knows just what to do and say and he's so, so, so… good. I'm just… not."

"You're not good?" he repeated. Mal shook her head, glancing down at her lap and twiddling her thumbs. He had a feeling they weren't talking about good as in "being good at something" but rather "good and bad".

"Mallie, you know good and evil don't really exist, right?"

"Well, of course they don't… it's just… sometimes they do."

"What's that mean?"

Mal chewed on her cheek more. What would he do if she happened to bite right through it? Was that possible? How would that even be treated?

They took an exit off the main road and pulled into the drive-in of a cheap family diner. They were only about fifteen minutes from the palace even if Hades thought Ben was more likely to reinstate the barrier and murder his own father than be forced to call Mal for help.

Mal still hadn't answered, so Hades busied himself with rolling down his window and reading the menu to her. "There's vanilla and peach and chocolate – oh look, you can get them with candy coating. Do you want strawberry or birthday cake or-"

"Maybe I should call Ben and make sure everything's okay-"

Hades snapped his hand out to catch her wrist as she pulled her phone out of her jacket. He slowly wrenched it from her fingers and then tucked it into the driverside door, making sure the screen was facing away so she couldn't use magic to make the touchscreen react. "There's also cherry and butterscotch," he finished.

Mal's lower lip was jutting out, but she turned her focus to the dimly-lit plastic board of options and sighed. "Maybe the peach and strawberry option?" she asked.

"Still craving fruit?"

Mal blushed. "Yeah."

Hades pulled forward to the little black speaker box with the hexagonal opening in it. "Hello, we'd like to order some ice creams-"

"Let me know when you're ready to order."

"We like to get some-"

"Hold on sir, you're not coming through clearly."

"Can you hear me-"

"What would you like to order?"

Mal giggled as Hades huffed in annoyance. She leaned past him and gave her order to the black box. For some reason, her voice was more compatible with the hexagon. When Hades still couldn't talk straight, she gave them his order too.

Maybe they didn't have a great speaker, in Hades' opinion, but they did have pretty fast service. A tiny drive later and with a few fumbling interactions, Mal was balancing two rather tall cones as Hades tried to exit the driveway without committing curbicide. He growled when the wheels protested a particularly tight turn and Mal giggled when the back wheel thumped up and over a grate.

"Ben told me that there was a nice little park over this way-"

"Maybe I should call him now?"

"Mallie, it's been twenty minutes."

Mal guarded the ice cream from the sunlight carefully as Hades circled the street and the parking lot twice before finding the park hidden behind a wall of thick trees. The two left the car parked as straight as they could between two crooked lines of paint and got out. Mal hesitated before closing her car door. "Can I check my phone to make sure…"

Hades closed the door for her. "I've got my phone. If the palace burns down, you can see it from here. Otherwise, Ben will probably call me first."

They walked for maybe thirty seconds underneath the trees before finding some park benches. Originally, Hades had planned on making Mal walk a little bit more to keep her mind off Zach, but walking turned out to make it harder to focus on eating ice cream, so they stopped and listened to the wind blow through the trees around them. Kids were laughing nearby – this park had a playground.

"You could probably walk here with Zach from time to time," Hades hummed as he picked off bits of the candy coating to snack on. "He'd probably love that."

Mal hummed in agreement. "We wouldn't have to bring guards," she agreed. "The palace doesn't usually make me take guards. Just Ben."

"I think that says a lot."

"It does, doesn't it?"

Hades flicked a bit of candy at her. It was so hot out here that even the coating was starting to melt. A bit of white stuck to her cheek, which she wiped away as she rolled her eyes. "Why is Auradon so hot and green and.." he threw his head back and let a demonic growl escape his throat. A passing jogger jumped, looked around, and kept going.

Mal laughed. "It took me a long time to get used to how bright it is here. Sometimes I still catch myself squinting."

Hades nodded. "Auradon is weird."

"Auradon is weird."

"I just don't understand them."

"I never have either."

Hades chewed on his cheek. "It's… odd," he said. "Some people just… came off the island and came to Auradon. And some of us came off the island, but then we brought the Isle with us."

Mal's hand shook a little as she bit off the top of her cone. She traced the green coating of the metal chain-link table. "That's me," she whispered. "I know I'm in Auradon, I think I act Auradon, but then something happens and I realize that part of me is just always stuck on that island, trying to get out of the barrier."

"It's tough."

"It is tough."

"Everyone always thinks I'm crazy."

"I'm so afraid I'm going to hurt Zach because of it."

There was a silence then. It was an odd silence that was so… palpable it's almost like someone set an object in front of them. An object of silence.

"Mallie, you're doing really good with him. Everyone says so."

But Mal sniffed and wiped her eyes with her wrist. "I… I don't know."

"I know. Ben knows. Heck, even Zach knows. Ben says you're his favorite person."

Mal shook her head. "I swear I'm doing my best but… I just think I'm too much like mom to do this."

"Now listen, I know Maleficent wasn't the easiest person to get along with, but she was a good mom to you. A really good mom. She cuddled you and sang and-"

"No, she wasn't a good mom." Mal set her cone down and held her hands to her head. "She wasn't… maybe she was good at first, but she wasn't good when I needed her to be."

Hades reached across the table. Mal put her hand in his and squeezed it a little. "You talk to her lately?" he whispered.

Mal shook her head. "Not since I found out I was pregnant. She was just… I knew what she would say. So I never went and told her or anything. She probably knows now, of course, but I didn't say anything."

"What did you think she'd say?"

"The same thing she's been saying for years. Every time I've gone to visit her ever since I got married it's been the same thing. How I'm making a huge mistake and turning my back on her and Ben isn't in this for the long run and all my children will be exactly like me and-"

"If all of your children turn out exactly like you, I think you and Ben should count yourselves lucky."

Mal sobbed. She took her hand back and covered her face and began to cry. Hades was up out of his seat and over to her side of the table before she could even finish putting her head down to hide her tears.

"I can't do this," she sobbed. "I can't even… what if there's still evil in me? What if it got to him somehow? I don't want to make it worse and I don't want him catching anything from me… but I can't leave him when he's so small and he needs me…"

"There is no evil in you," Hades protested. He tried to pull her into a sitting position so he didn't have to hug the table to get his arms around her. "Mal, you are a good person."

"I can't possibly be a good person," Mal disagreed. "And Zach… how can I be a good mom? I don't know what a good mom is. Ben has Belle and Adam and he's perfect and good but I've got Maleficent and-"

She broke down more, leaning into his shoulder. Hades rubbed her back slowly. "What'd she do to you?" he whispered.

He meant the question rhetorically, but then Mal's breath caught and shuddered and he realized then what Ben had meant about her going back into an Isle state. Her mind was jumping back to always having to be on her guard, always having to protect what was hers. She'd never been a mom before and so she'd naturally retreated to remembering what her mom was like and trying to avoid that.

Hades rubbed her back to try and calm her down. "Mal," he whispered to try and bring her back to Auradon. "What happened? What'd she do?"

"She wasn't good," Mal whispered against his shoulder. "She wasn't… Ben's been trying to help me…"

"What'd she do?"

There was a lot of sniffling as Mal tried to calm back down. "I'm sorry, I'm just-" she wiped her nose on the napkins that had been given to them with their ice creams. Her peach ice cream was leaking out through the strawberry coating in little streams onto the pavement. "There was a lot. And I thought I was past it, but these last few weeks have been hard."

Hades put a hand on her knee and squeezed. "Talk," he urged.

A few deep breaths. "She would… she'd leave me alone for long times… just in my room or in… she had this other room where she'd keep me and I wasn't allowed to leave."

"Allowed?"

"Well, the one room had chains so I couldn't leave-"

"Chains?"

"Ben was mad too."

Ben was mad too? Just mad? He reasoned that Mal was likely downplaying the explosion Ben had had but geesh, Hades was a lot more than "mad" right now.

"What kind of a room?"

"A dark one. She had a lantern she'd bring whenever she'd come in and do stuff."

"Do stuff?"

"She wasn't a good mom, dad. She wasn't."

There was this deep and burning rage that was rising inside his chest. It wasn't like he hadn't dealt with child abuse before – people around the world had routinely left infants to die in fields and the Greeks had seen honor in assaulting young boys in particular, but he had also had to deal with the Polynesian people who tossed infants to sharks and the Babylonian people who auctioned their children off to brothels and the Hebrews who both slit the throats and stoned their raped daughters and the general crazy people who drove families off cliffs and threw children into walls. And yes, he'd put all those people into their proper places in the underworld. But there was a different rage felt here, when he'd trusted that woman with his daughter and was now finding she'd been locked in a room for-

"How long?"

"Well, it happened a lot for as long as I can remember…"

"No, I meant how long would she leave you there."

Mal wiped her eyes with her fingertips. "Usually just a few days."

"A few-"

"I know, I know. I know it's not normal, I just… that's what it was." Mal seemed to be finding a little bit of stability as she kept talking. "I talk to Ben and I know what a normal childhood should look like – I just didn't have one."

"She left you in a room for days?"

"That room or my room. My room was usually for… other people though."

"Other people?"

No answer, meaning an answer he didn't want.

"Mallie, she didn't-"

"That's what it was, Dad. That's how our world was. I didn't see anything wrong with it."

"How many?"

"Geesh, dad, it's not like I counted. It was just part of life. I didn't even understand the concept of rape until Carlos and Evie were talking to-"

"I can't believe it." He sat back, letting his arms fall back from her. His wrist hit the table and – ouch, that hurt – but he didn't even react.

Mal set a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. It was forever ago. Really."

"I trusted her with you."

"Well, you don't need to anymore."

He glanced over at her as she finished drying the rest of her tears. She took several deep breaths. He felt like he needed some too, but his head was more focused on drafting the perfect eternal punishment for Maleficent than it was on something subsidiary like the anger that was overpowering everything in him.

"I don't, do I?"

"No. That's Ben's job now."

"Well, at least he does a better job of looking after you." Wait. "Does he?"

"He does." She let a little bit of broken laughter escape. "And he's been working with me on all of this. I know he's been frustrated with me these last few weeks, but he knows I'm trying."

"You are trying. And you're doing good."

"I'm trying."

"You are good."

"I'm trying."

He set his hand back on her knee and squeezed. Mal put her hand atop his and squeezed back. Then there was a plop as her ice cream tipped over on the table and the last of the candy coating smashed through the green chain links. "Oh, shoot," Mal sighed. "Well, it was a lot of ice cream, I guess."

"Mal," Hades called. She turned and focused on him. Her eyes were red now from crying, which made the green stand out more. He leaned forward and wiped a few more tears out from under her lashes. "You literally gave up an entire belief system after five days of trying something new. You stepped up to be the future queen of a country you'd hated all your life for a boy you'd known six months. You took that country's safety and put it on your own shoulders and then fought tooth and nail to help everyone on both sides of that barrier for the last six or so years. If Maleficent could be one of the worst parents on that Isle and raise you, then Zach doesn't need to worry about any… residual evil from his grandmother. Whatever tough-stuff you've got in you, he's got in him. And he's got a better mom than you did, so he'll make it. No problem there."

Mal let out a little laugh. Her gaze darted down to the ground though, so Hades tugged her chin back up. "Evil doesn't exist," he whispered. "And even if it did, you work through it just fine. He can too. And that's not even taking into account the fact you've got a pretty awesome partner too."

"He is pretty great, isn't he? I got lucky."

"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves."

She laughed a little more and a few more tears escaped, but Hades wasn't too worried about them. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him again. Behind them, the steady "plip… plip… plip," of the melting ice cream could be heard. Another crash came as Hades toppled to the ground. They sat in silence, drawing off each other's weakness until something vibrated in Hades's pocket. Mal made a face at the offending noise and then sat straight up. "Is it Ben?" she demanded.

Hades sighed and fished in his robes for the device. He still wasn't used to carrying it around, but it had a cute picture of his grandkid and daughter on the front and that made him a little more fond of it.

"It is Ben," he affirmed. "It says he has sent me an attachment."

"An attachment?" Mal craned her head to read over his shoulder. "Why is his name 'Daughter Thief'?"

"Because 'Mal's unfortunate temporary assistant' was too long for a first name."

"Temporary?"

"Your vows said until death do you part. I didn't make the rules!" He passed the phone over to her. It was a photo of Zach, lying on his belly on Ben and Mal's bed and smiling at the camera. His eyes, which were Mal's pale-green without any magic behind him, were focused on the camera. Mal let out a happy sigh against Hades's arm.

A message came through. "Don't show Mal if she's still freaking out but you can have this photo to add to your stash."

Hades snorted. "She's okay."

A long pause, probably where Ben was debating what Hades meant by "okay".

"Really?"

"I'll try and keep her out a bit longer, but yeah." (Mal snorted and poked him for that message.)

"She's not worried that the press will break in and smother him?"

"She's calm."

"Unbelievable."

Mal hummed against Hades's arm. He put the phone away and ran his fingertips down her arm once. She closed her eyes. He laughed. "What, did worrying about him for six weeks straight wear you out?"

She shook her head and yawned. "I just want him to be okay," she mumbled.

Hades chuckled and watched as the heat got to her and she drifted away. "If he's anything like his momma, he won't go wrong."

Five minutes of silence. A palpable silence, but this time somewhat comforting. Like someone had dropped a blanket of silence over them. The ice cream stopped its "plip… plip… plip," as it dried. Eventually, Hades picked Mal up and carried her to the car. Put the air conditioning on and they drove around for a little longer before Hades pulled back up to the palace and carried her back in. Ben had to unlock the door before he could wander in and put her onto their bed. By that time, tiny prince Zach had also fallen asleep, so they put him beside Mal on top of all the covers and put a light blanket on them before turning on the fan and letting them both sleep.

"Thanks again for taking her out," Ben sighed after the door was shut. "She's been… ramping herself up for weeks."

"It was good," Hades nodded. "Nice to talk to her."

"You work magic. Seriously. She wasn't even listening to me anymore. I mean, you saw her…"

"Yeah. She was out there."

They both shifted awkwardly in the door. "Well, have a nice day," Ben said.

"You too, Daughter-Thief."

"Wait, does that mean I can call you-"

"No."

Back out the front door; he was drumming his hands on his legs. The car was still running – he put it in gear and headed out. The route home was memorized, but so was another route. Soon, he was peering up at a different government building.

Big white walls and barbed wire would mean nothing – visiting hours were still happening. Somewhere inside was a fae woman with black horns and evil in her blood who had a lot to answer for. He could wander in and request to see her. They could sit her down with clear glass and a telephone for them to talk to each other. He could interrogate her on everything she had done and let her know exactly where she was going when she died.

But then he was leaving again before anything had happened.

Mal would be fine. He would be too.