#vanityfest

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Emmerdale Rating: Mature Relationships: Charity Dingle/Vanessa Woodfield

Chapter 7!

“What is it?” Vanessa finally asks when the Christmas music playing softens into a slower song.

Marlon jumps a bit, startled by the sound of her voice. “What’s what?”

Vanessa stares at him, eyes slowing narrowing. “Whatever it is you’re looking at.” He’s been looking at her for the last thirty minutes, his mouth half-turned up and his chin in his hand as he leans over the bar. “You’re freaking me out.”

I'll open this post by saying that the idea and inspiration for this minific came from @piratekane about a month ago, so due credit to you, bud. Thanks for the inspo.

Tweaked sliiiighly to make it a bit Christmas-ey for @vanityfest

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“Who am I?”

The question takes Vanessa by surprise when she’s packing her bag, preparing to leave the farm having finished their vaccinations for the afternoon. 

It’s getting colder and colder at night now that mid-winter is drawing closer, it’ll be full-dark by the time they get home and Charity can press a hot mug of something into Vanessa’s hand, and pull her down onto the couch to watch the lights of the tree flicker in the corner of their lounge.

She turns around to find Moses holding his plastic apron out in front of him, folding it ready to stow back in the boot next to Vanessa’s own.

She’s taken to bringing Moses along on most of her non-urgent call-outs over the past six months. He has an extremely natural aptitude for animal husbandry, and he’ll make an excellent vet if he chooses to follow it through when he finishes school.

He pushes his hair out of his face as he looks at her earnestly. There’s more of Charity in Noah, the two of them peas in a pod these days now that he’s surpassed her in height. Moses, though, is a little more of an enigma. There’s a bit of Barton in him, Vanessa can see it when Ross smiles sometimes, but there’s not a lot of Dingle.

He’s a bit of an old soul, truth be told. It’s why he’s so good with animals. It’s why Vanessa enjoys bringing him out every chance she gets. Because she knows what it’s like to exist in a house full of people louder than yourself, it’s easy to get drowned out until they remember that the other people that inhabit the space with them are there too.

“What do you mean, love?” Vanessa asks with a patient frown. “Didn’t fall and knock your head when I wasn’t looking, did you?”

“No,” he says, flushing red. He screws the apron into a tight ball in his hands. “I mean, I dunno, Ness,” he says with a defeated sigh, “don’t worry about it, yeah?”

“Hey,” Vanessa says quickly, reaching for his arm, stopping him from shrugging of and reburying his worries. There’s Charity, she thinks with a smirk. The old Charity, anyway. Running away instead of facing her feelings when he’s scared. “Hey, I’m not your brother, alright, either one of them. You don’t ever have to feel like you can’t say something to me. Especially if you’re worried about it.”

“You won’t make fun of me?” he asks hesitantly, dropping his eyes and scuffing his toe into the dirt of the barn floor.

“Never, love,” Vanessa says as her heart tugs painfully. She needs to have another word to the rabble at home about talking about things, she thinks with an internal scowl. “Never.”

His hair is tidier than the rest of his family, something else that picks him apart from the crowd. It’s blonder than his mother’s and his brother’s and Debbie’s, surprisingly blonde given his father. It’s closer to Vanessa’s natural colour, funnily enough. She wonders if it’ll darken next year when he leaves for college.

He pushes it out of his eyes again before he finally looks up to Vanessa again.

“Sometimes I just don’t know who I am, you know?” he says quietly, dropping his eyes to his feet again. “Johnny’s yours by blood, yeah? But him and Mum are thick as thieves. Noah’s Noah, and Tracy seems to be the only one who actually understands him apart from Mum, but I dunno. Sometimes I don’t feel like I fit, you know. I’ve never really felt like a Dingle.”

“Funny old mantle, that, isn’t it?” Vanessa says, taking the apron from his hands, chucking it in the boot of the car and walking him over to the tap to wash their hands. “Being a Dingle, I mean. Your mum pushed against it for years, you know that, don’t you? It’s only since.... well, since we’ve been together that it’s a good thing for her, too. Since her family have proper come around and supported her, and made her feel like it was something she wanted. It’s been a curse for her for a long time.”

She tugs him by the elbow gently, smiling when he bends down and turns the stuck old tap on for the both of them, pulling the anti-bacterial soap from out of the bucket they’d left near the tap earlier. She can see him clenching his jaw, trying to hold back more emotion than he can control so it doesn’t show in his eyes.

Funny, she thinks as she pushes her hands under the strong, freezing cold rush of water. Charity does that too.

“There’s more of your mum in you than you know,” Vanessa says kindly when she straightens up, reaching up to brush her palm against his cheek, after Moses hands her the towel to dry them off with. “You’ve just got the quiet parts, darling.”

He’s different to her too, though. Charity will preen in the face of any genuine compliment without fail, but Moses always only ever smiles and turns his gaze away.

“You know what?” Vanessa says after watching him carefully for a moment. He looks up when he hears her speak, blinking when an odd breeze whips a bit of dust around them. She squeezes his hand in her own before continuing. “You might be a Dingle, love, but I feel like you’re more Woodfield most of the time. Even if I am a Dingle now, too.”

She’s a Dingle. She still can’t believe it herself most of the time, but the wedding ring that she can feel in her pocket pressed against the skin that she’ll fish out and put back on once they’re in the car is a solid, steady reminder. They’ve had the odd bump here and there, but Vanessa’s so happy, and so stupidly in love with Charity, even more than a decade after their wedding, that she’s still not completely convinced this is all just an incredibly extensive fever dream.

She’s happy, and settled, and content, and so is Charity, deeply so, and so - Vanessa thought anyway - was their little blended family with their house full of warmth, and gifts, and garish christmas decorations that Charity keeps swearing she isn’t the one buying.

Moses makes a soft sound of amusement that tells her he’s pleased with her deduction, smiling warmly and squeezing her hand in reply. “Mum says that sometimes,” he sighs, “that she thinks somehow they switched me and Jo in the hospital, ‘cause they’re so alike.” A sad expression washes over his face. “Don’t get me wrong, Ness, bein’ a Woodfield is grand and all, but,” he stalls again, wiping at his cheek with his spare hand, “now that you’re a Dingle too, who does that make me?”

He wears his heart on his sleeve if you know what to look for, just like Charity does, and she feels her throat thicken at the genuine anguish in his eyes. 

Who he is, is ultimately simple though. He’s a part of her, just as much as her own son is. She might love his mother more than life itself, but he’s an extremely close second.

“You’re my son, Moses,” Vanessa replies effortlessly, smiling a wobbly, watery smile before she pulls him to her, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. He’s just taller than Johnny, shorter than Noah and Charity, and she can rest her chin perfectly on his shoulder as she sniffs, rubbing at his back. “You’re all your Mum’s, and you always will be, but you’re my son, too.”

Vanessa: *Sees Noah in the room* What’s wrong with your Mum?

Noah: She’s just a little overwhelmed right now. She’s been lying on the floor for like 30 minutes.

Vanessa: Why?