"I didn't think," he muttered as he reached for her hand across the seat of the car, "It would be this difficult to come back."

"No," she rested her head on his shoulder, "I know."

They had sat in the gardens at Versailles the day before, seriously considering extending their trip by another week. They had found an horrendously uncomfortable looking châteaux, and thought it might be a romantic place to spend some time. She had admitted to him, though, that she was really beginning to miss home. In actual fact, she really wanted to see Wednesday. He had smiled when she said that, took her in his arms, and agreed that it was time to go home. They flew business after Gomez described, with some hilarity, the child who had become an amateur chiropractor on his journey out. 'Still though,' he had laughed, 'Nothing beats the rack.'

"I have to say though," she continued, "I have missed my bed. I hate to be a cliché, but it is very true. And you know what else I miss?"
"What?"

He was genuinely curious, and that curiosity had come about as a result of what he had learned of her after their week in Paris. Morticia was being unusually talkative and also, unusually candid. The fact that they had very obviously needed this break had been made very clear to him, and he was so glad that it had come about, even in the horrible way that it had. It was like he had switched a tap on within his wife, as if he had been missing something with her conversations, as if he hadn't been hearing her properly for a while. They did communicate all the time, but he was hearing her properly. She was telling him things, she had spent the last week telling him things, that she hadn't in a long while.

He had never been a husband who was complacent, and she had never been complacent either. They had watched both of their parents' marriages and known that complacency (and in Gomez's father's case, a wandering eye) was the enemy of a decent marriage. They knew what they didn't want in a marriage, and that had always been the foundation on which they had set their expectations.

He had spent those small minutes when he had been alone over the last few days pondering what it had been that had brought her to flee him for those 3 days. He had come to the conclusion that they both thought they knew each other so intimately, that there was nothing more to learn. They had both been wrong, he supposed. It had struck him like a blow, as they wandered through the intricately designed maze in the gardens of the palace and she engaged in a low-voice rhapsody about the intricacies of how it had come about, that he had started to forget her own identity – he had forgotten to see Morticia for who she was. He had forgotten the woman who loved plants and poison, who could recite and analyse in detail Shakespearean sonnets. That she was the woman he had once encouraged to 'seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade'. He wasn't sure, quite frankly, if he'd ever given her room to get around to doing that.

"You are an incredible woman," he said suddenly, breaking the silence in the car.

She smiled, "Thank you."

"No, I really mean it."

"I know."

"No," he cried passionately, making Lurch jump slightly in the front of the Packard, "No you do not. The fact that I find you completely desirable aside, you are very incredible. You are incredibly smart, you are a very good mother. You are the mistress of your own destiny. I find that more incredible than any other part of you. You must have what you want."

She looked at him seriously, "I have exactly what I want right now."

"Promise me?"

"I promise," she responded, obviously bemused by his sudden insistence.

"Have you done everything you've ever wanted to do though? Because if you haven't, we will make it happen. I know that the children, and marriage and...everything else gets in the way. You never ask for anything."

"That's not strictly true."

"You know what I mean! You never say 'I'd like to go here, or I would like to do this further...you don't ever ask anything, of any of us. If I need you to do something, you do it. If I need you to sit through a mind-numbing dinner, put up with my brother, host cocktails - you do it. You put up with the Amore twins for me, by god."

"It's what you do in a marriage," she responded casually, amused by his sudden anguish.

"Yes but are you content with it?"

"Of course," she said calmly, "Gomez, didn't you know I was not content last week?"

He paused for a moment, "So that is the only time you have lacked contentment?"

"I wouldn't even say that. More upset, I would say. Gomez, you have always made me incredibly content so in that tiny, silly mistake, I suddenly felt shocked. I was just shocked and I reacted...unusually for me."

"But it was the way in which you reacted that shocked me and it made me realise that there was a side of you that I'd forgotten. You were wife, mother, then Morticia. In that order. I suppose I wonder if that was a mistake."

"No," she said quite firmly, "No, those things make me Morticia."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh Gomez, mon cher, yes!"

Her tone, part reassuring and part frustrated, told him that it was time to stop the discussion. He was content with her response because, as he had been reminded so brutally the week before, she only ever dealt in truths.

"Ok, ok," he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, delighted to see the mansion looming up before them on the heath.

There was a rather disorganised welcome party in the hall of their home, but he was delighted to see them nonetheless.

"Thank god you're home," mama groused, pointing at Pubert, "I never had the chance to cook with him around. He jabbers all the time."

He smiled angelically as Gomez scooped him into his arms and then up onto his shoulders. The boy wrapped his arms around his father's head and hugged him.

"I missed you both!"

"We missed you," Morticia rubbed her son's knee. She could understand mama's frustration – he did talk incessantly. He was very much his father's son but she had always found his constant conversation very charming.

He clambered from his father's shoulders, down onto the floor to fold himself around her legs. She ran her hand over his hair and was unbelievably glad to see him.

"Fester," Gomez stepped forward and clapped his brother on the shoulder, "Thanks for holding the fort old man."

"Anytime," he looked at Dementia, "But we'll be getting home as soon as."

Gomez winked at his brother and they shared an intimate laugh.

"How was Paris?"

Pugsley kissed his mother lightly on the cheek and she was glad that at least some of her husband's gentlemanly charms had rubbed off on her son.

"Wonderful, as always."

"I am green with envy."

Everyone looked to the top of the stairs, to find Wednesday. She stood with her arms crossed but pulling at the corners of her mouth was a little smile.

"Hello father."

Then she stalled, and looked directly at her mother as she came down the stairs.

"Hi mother," she said, stopping in front of her.

Morticia looked into the face, so like her own, and was astounded by how grown up her daughter had become. She slid her hand into her daughter's, and squeezed her fingers.

"I am so glad to see you," she continued.

"And I am glad to see you," she said genuinely, "What are you doing right now?"

"Reading."

"Would you like to walk with me?"

"Yes please."

Morticia could remember the limitless possibilities she had imagined when she cradled her little girl in her arms. She was barely a woman herself, yet she had responsibility for this life. The whole notion was overwhelming, and she remembered feeling like she couldn't say anything to him about the fear that was seeping into her bones. She had let the midwife change the bed, clean them both up, and settle Wednesday before she even dreamed of facing her husband. He had been so overjoyed that she couldn't bare to share her worries with him. And then they were parents and there was no way at all to stop the march into the future.

When Pubert had been born, it was quite a different story. By that point she had been convinced of her ability to at least look after a baby, if not to be a mother. It was true that mothers and fathers had very different relationships with their children. It had to be, by the very nature of the way in which children came into the world, and their time spent languishing as parasites in their willing host for months before.

She still felt those limitless possibilities for her children, and as she looked at her daughter, she wondered if her Wednesday would ever feel that overwhelming emotion. She turned to look at her daughter's profile. Her face was set, never betraying her emotions, but she was strikingly beautiful nonetheless. Gomez was right – Wednesday never excelled at sharing emotions. They were walking slowly, Wednesday running her hands along the gravestones that lined their path.

"You know," Morticia said, "I would say that your birth was the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced."

"But you love pain mother," she responded.

"No, I don't mean that aspect. No, I thoroughly recommend it; if only to experience the gut-wrenching agony. What I mean is that after you, I couldn't believe I had such vast responsibility. You were never difficult to manage because you never cried and you never groused. However, it was so much to take in. Your father wanted you so much, and I did too, but I have to say that I did not take it in my stride like he did. He was so full of enthusiasm, I was just full of anxiety. All I wanted," she turned and looked pointedly at her daughter, "Was your happiness."

"I am so, so sorry."

It rushed forth from Wednesday's mouth in one breath and she stalled, holding out her hands.

"I wanted to impress his family so badly, and for them to like us. And I hate myself for it. I loathe that I wanted them to like us when all I should care about is being me, and us being us and the name and-"

"You're being remarkably animated," Morticia interrupted wryly, placing a gentle hand onto her daughter's arm "I fear you are going to burst."

Wednesday smiled coldly, "Not exactly ladylike?"

"Not at all, my dear."

"Alright mother," she sighed.

"You are in love," Morticia said softly, "You can be forgiven your mistake. I believe Thackery was onto something when he said 'Love makes fools of us all.'"

"Indeed," Wednesday said bitterly.

"It certainly made a fool of your cold mother," Morticia laughed a little.

"Are you...is everything-"

Morticia could see that her child was wrangling to find the words that she needed. She could see Wednesday struggle with the elusive, emotional language all the time and it concerned her and endeared her in equal measure.

"Of course we are fine," she responded, "Perhaps better than ever."

"I thought I had split my parents apart."

"No," Morticia laughed genuinely, "Not even death will tear us apart. It is deliciously bleak and true."

"I love Lucas," her daughter responded genuinely, "But not with that intensity."

"You will. This is something your mother knows."

"Do you forgive me?"

"I don't want to but unfortunately, those nine months in which you weakened me considerably and through those years you have exhausted my resources, I find that I am inexplicably attached to you. It's the curse of motherhood."

She held her child then, and stared at her wedding rings on her hand. The metaphor had been tested and it had withstood.