Disclaimer: None of the characters mentioned within belong to me. The plot of the musical isn't mine either. I make no monetary gain from these stories.

Author's note: This is an attempt at a darker – more filmic- version of the musical plot. While I love every incarnation the films will always be my favourite.

I am going to attempt, with the best will in the world, to make this a chapter story and complete it.

It could, if you squint, be viewed as a prelude to my story 'Paris'.

Please read, review, follow and, most essentially, enjoy.

He rarely gave into anything as deep as philosophical musings, being more inclined to leave the politics and ethics of their decisions in the hands of his exquisitely capable wife. Before him now stood the darkest of ethical quandaries, and at the heart the two most important women in his life. Between his fingers his rapier was heavy, and between his mind and heart his conscience was leaden. He stared at his daughter as if seeing her for the first time properly; as if before this moment he had viewed her through a lens of smeared, filmy glass which had softened the edges of her maturity to him.

"Married?"

The word fell from his mouth unaided, unwanted there and expelled deservingly. His eyes focussed on his daughter's and they were pleading, miserable in their desperation.

"You can't tell her," she suddenly whispered, her dry little voice frantic.

It took him a moment to fully comprehend and when he did his rapier went limp in his fingers as the realisation of what his girl was asking him to do became solid and tangible.

He barked a shocked little laugh, "Wednesday, no."

Her face contorted into agony as she fished behind her collar for a chain, on which there was strung a very – he had to concede – pretty engagement ring. He near blanched at its production, hidden in all its elusive glory, and now offered to him as a symbol of something he couldn't quite understand.

He shook his head, spoke a little more harshly, "Wednesday, no!"

She clutched her fists by her side, her pale face grew paler, "Father, please. I know what I am asking-"

"No," he said calmly, going towards the sideboard and lifting the decanter, "You don't. You cannot possibly comprehend."

"She's so…"

He spun on his heels to look at her, daring her to criticise her own mother, and the amber liquid sloshed out of his glass and on to the floor. She cowered a little, unused to his rage and ire, and shook her head.

"She'll tell me I'm wrong," she said quietly, "She needs to know him first."

He shook his head a little, laying his weapon across the desk and putting the glass beside it, "You think so lowly of her?"

"Father, your vision of her is clouded."

He was so incredulous he couldn't answer her. Yes. Clouded beyond all sensible recognition. Clouded wilfully and wonderfully.

"I'm not saying you're wrong but I am saying you're clouded in your judgement of her. She will tell me I'm wrong…we – I – need time."

"Time for what Wednesday?"

"For them to get to know us," she said desperately, "Please, father, please."

He looked at her, then glanced at his wedding ring and then back to his daughter. Her face was flushed and clutched together, her hands were wringing and turning red. Panic stabbed at him then, mixed with anxiety. She was evidently distressed, though it hardly took an astute man to deduce this.

"I've never lied-"

"I wouldn't ask you father, if I didn't think I needed to," she rushed towards him and he opened his arms.

She was so different from who she had once been; gone was that stoic little lady, severe and bleak, and in place of her was a woman. Where, he wondered, had she gone? That little girl who had performed Hamlet and spit-roasted camp Chippewa's staff, where was she now?

He touched her crown with his lips and mourned her braids. They had disappeared over the course of the summer and now her hair grazed the sides of her jaw in a cut that had first shocked him. He thought now that she rather suited it but he couldn't help but miss how easy it had been to be the father of a little girl.

"Mother will tell me I'm wrong," she said mournfully.

"And she'll be right," he said, pushing her back from him to look into her face. "You must tell her tonight. I'll only keep your secret for a few hours."

She looked at him, "Thank you father. I wouldn't ask-"

He shook his head and she fell silent, "Don't. Just don't keep this from your mother any longer than you need to. Promise me."

"I promise you," she said blandly, taking a step back, "I have never lied."

"Untill now, neither have I," he said as he lifted the glass from the desk again and sat down, "Neither have I."

"Thank you father," she almost whispered, retreating from the room and closing the door behind her.

He sat down on the couch and stared into the fire. Lie to Morticia. Some may not call it a lie but it was, it was a lie by omission and this fact was very clear to him. His reluctance, indeed, had been born from the fact that to omit this knowledge was to commit a cardinal sin against her. He had never kept a secret from his wife but nor had his daughter ever invited him into her confidences in such an abundant way. Now he was firmly trapped; between eros and storge. There was, he mused, the good kind of trapped. The kind of trapped situation when you couldn't decide between the manacles or the rope. When she decided that she would keep him prisoner in the dungeon until she saw fit. When she trapped him between her body and the sheets. All the good sort of entrapment situations would be firmly unavailable to him if he decided to navigate this one poorly.

Storge. From the bookcase to his left he plucked a tome of philosophy, and flicked nearly to the most early description of the types of love before nausea rose in his throat and he slammed it shut, leaning his head against the cool shelf of the bookcase. He thrust the dusty book back into its space and with one neat slam, brought down his fist onto the shelf itself. It was enough to dissipate his panic for the moment and so, with the thoughts of storge and all of its implications, he returned to where he had been sitting upon the couch.

His daughter, the little girl he had raised and loved and held in such high esteem that she surely could never have made anything akin to a mistake, appeared to be making a colossal one now. Not, he thought ruefully to himself as he undid the row of buttons on his blazer, that he considered marriage in itself to be a mistake. Marrying young or for the wrong reasons was a mistake. Marriage was not a mistake. He had never believed, not even for the most miniscule of moment, that his marriage had been a mistake.

He wondered about this boy too, and a beast of jealousy grew monstrous and loud in the pit of his stomach. Black and spiny, it crawled through him and into his heart where it made a home. To take his child, to make her a woman and to marry her, seemed so desperate a crime the likes of which no man had the right to commit against him. A furious growl, dampened by manners and his sensibilities, pushed its way to his lips.

"This is a morose scene."

At this sound of velvet made audible his head snapped up. Framed by the dying sun and the rotting oak of the door frame there was something unholy in the very presentation of her.

"Whatever could be wrong my darling husband?"

Her words carried across the room to meet his ears like promises made to a dying soul. On the zephyr of her voice, he was carried to the heights of heaven.

"When you are upon this earth," he sprung to his feet, urgently needing to be gallant in the face of such perfidy, "Nothing could be wrong."

She smiled as she came towards where he stood. From the heat of her greenhouse her face was flushed unusually and her eyes glittered.

"Dinner tonight," she touched his lapels lightly, "And a boy?"

She spoke of this with fond amusement, with light and humorous pleasure. The implication of camaraderie, of a shared joke, was almost too much for him. He was not only allowing himself to be taken advantage of but by lying to her, he suddenly realised, he was making a fool of her too. There was no equality in this conversation when he had the co-ordinates to navigate this coming dinner and she did not.

"Morticia," he groaned, "I…"

"Yes my love," she turned her wide eyes on him, "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," he shook his head, feeling the graze of her fingers across his cheek as if they were a branding iron.

He had sworn his allegiance to his child, against his wife. It was very simple.

"Are you unwell my love?" She leaned towards him, her lips grazing his ear-lobe, "If need be I can make it all better."

Abacination was akin to such torture as she, and his conscience, inflicted upon him now. To give in to her would be morally wrong but to resist her required a strength of character that he had lost the moment she slithered into his life.

"You can," he was biting his knuckles before he realised, his teeth making indents in the soft white flesh of his hand.

She prised his hand from his lips and when he opened his eyes he found her own were glistening with concern, "Gomez, my darling, are you alright."

Even to him his laugh of response sounded forced as he withdrew his hand from hers, "Of course my dear, just…"

She moved from him, taking his hand again and going towards the couch, sat down. He took his place beside her and she sidled nearer, placing a note on his lap. It was printed with pastel flowers and in the light of the fire the cheap paper became almost transparent.

"Prepare to read the most moving verse since Shakespeare last chewed upon his quill," she whispered conspiratorially, but kindly still, "And not only moving verse, but accompanied by a bunch of lemon-coloured roses. They look far prettier sans petals."

He laughed feebly, casting his eyes again over the limerick which was authored by Mrs Beineke.

"Is this woman sick?"

Morticia took the note from him and studied it again, "More's the pity if she's not."

"What if," he cast his eyes towards the fire, "What if she's in love with him?"

"Gomez," he knew instantly that she had misinterpreted him, "I know you worry about losing her but it's puppy love. Trust me. She's going to have lots of fun before she decides to settle down."

"How can you be sure?"

His throat was tight.

She leaned towards him again and the delicious scent of her perfume gathered around him like a cloud. With this in his head, he couldn't possibly lie to her if she were to ask him right now to bear his soul. She kissed his jaw line and her hands found the knot upon his tie, her sharp vermillion nails loosening the silk. The rarity of this was lost in the fact that he couldn't possibly allow her seduction to take place for fear of his lies pouring forth.

"She's just like her mother," she whispered, taking his hand and placing it authoritatively upon her hip.

He took her hand in his instead, keen to orchestrate a change in tone.

"You're beautiful," he said, pulling back to look at her face.

"Yes…let's explore that revelation further."

Until he had met her, he hadn't known a human could purr.

"Tish," he said seriously, "You know how I love you, don't you?"

She laughed softly, then sat back a little from him, "Yes Gomez. Not once have I doubted it but I rather like an illustration every now…and then."

"And then some?"

He scolded himself the minute the flirtation left his lips and his hands were on her shoulders.

"Yes," she whispered, "Precisely."

Her hands upon his face, her claws in his heart, he was pulled into her spiral of seduction as he found his lips upon hers. Underneath them the pillows were pulled by both and scattered across the floor, the glass of scotch falling victim to the projectiles. Then his blazer and waistcoat, and under his fingers he felt the lace of her hem.

"God! This is what I mean!"

Cheek to cheek they turned their faces towards the door and underneath him he was aware of her laboured breath and her little curse of disappointment. Despite himself, and the better part of his soul, he was pleased at the fact she felt so deprived.

Unfazed by such an interruption, he helped her to sit more comfortably before they both turned to face their daughter. She was standing in the door way, a note pad grasped in hand, and was flanked by all of the others; none of whom illustrated any more than mild amusement.

"This is what I mean?"

Morticia asked gently, brushing her hair back from her face with a smile and she settled properly on the couch.

"All I want is a normal night, is that so much to give me?"

He avoided his wife's eyes as she turned her exquisite face towards his. When he did not look at her, and after the humiliation of his ignorance had become too much, she turned back to her daughter as if facing a battle alone.

After all, that's exactly what he had left her to. He let his head fall into his hands and felt her eyes pierce him again.

The tenor of the room, so warm and very passionate moments before, had grown so cold that the fire might well die within a moment. Across the icy silence the real head of the family spoke;

"Of course my darling, it's nothing to ask at all."

He could barely suppress his groan at his wife's words.

I hope you enjoyed.