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If there’s anything Ethan learned during the hell that was his experience in Louisiana- besides learning how to fire a gun, make his own bullets, and the lengths he’d go to for the people he loves- it was how to make himself small, and quiet. It didn’t always help him, back then- Jack seemed to have a sixth-sense at times when it came to finding Ethan- but it sure was coming in handy now. To think, he’d thought he’d be able to leave those skills he’d learned under duress far behind him in his second shot at having a ‘normal’ life.
With his back pressed against the wall next to the closed bathroom door, Mia’s hushed whispers weren’t as hidden under the rush of water filling the tub as she thought. Mia had never been one to talk out loud to herself, not like he was. Talking himself through a problem helped him process, but even doing it near Mia tended to drive her up the wall, so he’d learned to mostly curb it around her. So, when he was walking past the bathroom to check how they were on diapers before making the grocery run and heard her voice, he stopped to check if everything was alright. He figured it’d be just a second, he’d hear her cursing out her medication– she absolutely hated taking the stuff– and then he’d go along his way, worry assuaged.
However, she’d clearly been talking to someone, someone that he couldn’t hear– and he can see Rose napping in her crib through the open bedroom door. Curiosity is his largest vice, so he hardly deliberates over the matter for a moment before gently sliding closer to the bathroom door and listening intently, fighting the urge to burst in and confront her about the terrible things she was saying the more he heard.
Sure, Ethan wasn’t catching every single word, but what he was hearing was damning.
She'd talked about performing tests on Rose- tests they'd agreed they weren't going to subject their child to, back before she was even born. Something he’d thought they’d settled before they’d even decided if they were going to keep the baby, once they discovered the pregnancy. On the other side of the door, Mia doesn’t stop talking and his hands ache for the familiar grip of a gun. In retrospect, it had been so easy, and his path so clear when he faced the Bakers to save his wife. Kill all obstacles, create the cure, get Mia, get out.
And now, years later, this.
If Mia wanted to immerse herself back into the shady world of ‘bio-weapons’, then that was her decision, but she had no right to drag Rose into it, and it sounded like that was exactly what she’d always intended to do.
Listening, he heard the E series come up, along with other concerning terms.
‘Dulvey’ was unmistakable.
He was that same hollow creature driven only by the overbearing need to make sure that his loved one was safe, as he hears Mia talk to someone else about their experience in Louisiana in the same breath as Rose. For years now, Mia had been refusing to talk about the vast majority of everything that happened to them both, going so far as to give him the cold shoulder every time he referred to anything from there directly by name.
It was always ‘there’, and ‘what happened’, or ‘what I/you/we went through'- she wouldn't hear the girl's name, the family's name, the name of the county or even the name of the state.
Interesting that now she's actually talking about it directly- to someone he doesn't know, and has no idea who it could be. Interesting that she's trying to hide it by hunkering down in the bathroom with the taps running while he's supposed to be putting Rosemary down for a nap and putting together the grocery list.
Eavesdropping on his wife isn’t something Ethan enjoys doing, but she’d been acting strange for weeks now. Privacy is important, and Ethan has his own secrets that Mia will never know- but they're nothing important, nothing that could possibly be dangerous to either of them. If she asked outright, he'd fess up immediately that he doesn't actually like her meatloaf and would really prefer making it himself from his own mother's recipe. He’d tell her about his nightmares, if he thought she’d listen, but those are secrets only for the reason that he knows she doesn’t want to hear about them.
Mia's secrets, on the other hand, have almost gotten the both of them killed before, multiple times.
And now there's this, solid proof of her hiding something from him again. He's not entirely unobservant, as much as she thinks he is blissfully oblivious to everything around him. Ethan can be single-minded, especially when in pursuit of a goal, but that doesn't render him deaf and blind to the goings-on around him.
Starting a few weeks ago, Mia's phone started constantly going off, little notification chimes cascading over themselves to alert her to a deluge of daily texts. She makes sure to angle the screen away from him, and won't tell him who's sending all of those messages, or what they're about. Not that he’s pressed the matter, but it’s still strange that she didn’t volunteer the information- she used to always tell him, ‘Oh, my friend Deb texted, she says hi’, ‘I’ll have to go in to work tomorrow’, or whatever else.
Even to himself, he sounds like a jealous dickhead, spying on the woman he married because she’s talking to someone he doesn’t know. How very dare she have a life outside of him, is how he sounds.
Texting someone else isn't a crime, and normally- back before Mia's disappearance, back when ‘normal’ applied to him- he would have thought nothing of it.
But not anymore. Mia’s the last of her family, and never had a large friend circle even before she vanished. Her friends had largely either drifted away from Ethan while she was missing, or outright accused him of being the reason she was missing- and none of them ever got to know that Mia had been found, regardless. Their friend circle hasn't exactly grown during their time in BSAA's witness protection.
Mia has fully embraced being a homebody ever since the BSAA relocated them- he can count on one hand the amount of times she’s left the house without him in the last three months. At least, that he's aware of. Making new friends hasn’t really been on either of their agendas, too focused on recovering and getting to know one another again, as well as studying up on the language of the region they’d been moved to.
Then there's Rose, their happy little surprise- and what little free time the two of them had, vanished into the all-consuming haze of taking care of a newborn, only recently starting to settle and sleep for more than a few hours at a time.
So it's not that he minds that Mia's talking to other people- it's just, who on earth could they possibly even be? Why wouldn’t she tell him who it was, if it was innocent?
Why would they be talking about Dulvey and testing Rose, if it was innocent?
He’d honestly love it if either of them were making friends with normal people again. It’d be something really wonderful, to know that they’ve recovered enough from what they went through to be able to relate to normal people again. Not to mention, it’s better for mental health if you have more than one or two other people to talk to on a semi-regular basis. He's dying to have a normal conversation with someone about the weather, the news, or what's on sale at the supermarket- he can only imagine what Mia feels, having been stuck in Dulvey so much longer than him.
He’d be leaping for joy if Mia made a friend, he’d invite them over for dinner and host a whole damn dinner party, try and remember how to chat to normal, untraumatized people.
But Mia isn’t acting like she’s made a new friend.
She’s acting like she’s keeping secrets, important, dangerous secrets. Last time she kept major things hidden from him, it didn’t end well. She'd sworn the whole time that she wanted to tell him everything, have no more secrets between them- despite lying about her role in the whole mess- and now, here they are.
He wants to trust her, to believe that she’ll live up to her word and not hide anything serious from him again- they both promised afterwards not to hide anything dangerous from each other, not ever again.
Inside the bathroom, Mia’s voice takes on a snappish tone he’s found uncomfortably familiar recently.
She’s angry all the time, snappish and short with him and Rose in a way that she’d mostly learned to hide behind wan smiles he pretended to believe, to keep the peace. Mia was also forgetting things- especially things about Rose. Things like which stuffed animal is her favorite, that Rose hates using a pacifier, or to take care of Rose's immediate needs.
Rose is the most important person in their lives, and she’s still completely reliant on their care, just at the point of rolling over by herself, not even crawling yet. Just yesterday, she’d screamed the house down for who knows how long before Ethan came home from running errands and raced up the steps to scoop her out of her crib and cradle her in his arms.
Mia was sitting in the living room with a glass of wine when Ethan came home, and hadn’t moved an inch by the time he’d gotten Rose settled and dealt with the diaper rash she hadn't had when he'd left. She didn’t even ask about Rose, and acted like she didn’t notice him come back downstairs, or that he’d torn through the house and up the stairs like he had an enemy on his heels when he’d heard their daughter’s cries through the front door.
It was… unsettling, to realize that the mother of his child didn't seem to actually be taking care of their child when he's not around.
So, yeah, he feels a little guilty for listening in on Mia’s private conversation- but not enough to stop him from doing it. Something isn’t right with Mia.
In the bathroom, Mia hisses over the phone, and berates someone for their incompetence. He hears something about preparations being almost complete, and thinks he hears the word ‘ritual’, but isn’t sure.
“That is enough whining. Do as I say, or you will come to regret it.” Silence, and then Ethan hears a venomous, “Good.”
Barely a moment passes before something loudly clatters against the inside of the bathroom door- likely the phone, thrown against the door. Smoothly and quickly, Ethan slides his way down the hall and away from where he'd been listening in on socked feet. Once he’s in front of the bedroom door, he deliberately leans weight on the creaky floorboard directly in front of it. He’s sure to make noise as he retraces his steps down the hall to the bathroom door, lightly knocking the frame with two knuckles.
“Mia? Everything alright in there? I thought I heard something fall.”
“I dropped the shampoo bottle, it’s fine.”
Despite his frown, he keeps his tone light as he says, “Alrighty then. I just got Rose down for her nap, and I’m going to head downstairs and grab some lunch before heading out to get the groceries. You want me to make you anything, add anything to the list?”
“No, I already ate.”
“Okay, be careful.”
Still deliberately making noise, Ethan goes downstairs, making sure to hang on to the squeaky bannister as he does.
Sure, he might just be acting paranoid- the psychiatrist the BSAA had made him attend several sessions with certainly would have thought so.
But something definitely isn’t right.