Chapter Thirty-Three

A princess day, it turned out, was doting on Lila even more than usual. But Bree had a new angle on the world, literally and figuratively. Instead of watching from the floor or the cage, she rested comfortably in Jo's lap, her head supported by the arm of the couch and her mouth nursing away at the nipple of yet another bottle.

Her diaper hadn't stayed dry for long, or at all really since she had still been going even as Faith changed her. The vulnerability of laying there, absolutely helpless, while the other girl changed her literal diapers had been an entirely new experience but Faith hadn't taunted her. She'd done the task with kindness and efficiency.

As though she'd changed another adult's diaper countless times before.

Lila waved from her throne, the highchair set up in the den upstairs. Kinsley's graphs danced on the monitors while the three silly bears danced on the television.

Faith, who had apparently lucked out and got to wear a frankly adorable pair of black shortalls with a silly plastic wallet chain and a rainbow emblazoned upon the front, paused the credits of the show, looking up to Lila in her frilly baby blue dress, the puffed sleeves visible on either side of the huge bib tied around the girls neck that declared her God's Favorite Princess, blasphemously.

"How is your cake, Your Highness?"

With a smile as wide as the world, Lila kicked her feet happily, announcing, "It's very good! But my baba- I mean the royal bottle is empty again."

"It would be my pleasure to refill Her Highness' goblet," Faith smirked, the bottle covered in pink princesses.

Suddenly, Lila's eyes widened. "Wait!" Stopping dead in her tracks, Faith turned and looked back to her liege. "We have to go see Frozen 2 today! We have to. I can't listen to the music if we don't!"

"I already bought the tickets, Princess Lila." Without even turning around, the back of a hand decorated in rings and pastel nails waved to them. "We're going after the markets close."

That was apparently everything she needed to hear. Watching her from this new vantage point, she had watched every emotion that crossed Lila's face. The joy and contentment of being the Dollhouse Princess, the excitement over the show, the absolute love that hid beneath the bratty demands, and the real, genuine fear when she remembered the movie.

It was like Lila felt everything ten times more intensely as every other person in the world.

She was completely honest with her emotions, holding nothing back - possibly because she couldn't. It explained a lot about the girl.

The rhythm of her own nursing echoed in Bree's ears as she turned it over in her mind. It was funny how many new things she could observe and absorb when she wasn't worried about what the others thought, when she wasn't obsessed with escaping or fighting for some shred of respect. She had room to think. To consider. The only thing she had to do was suckle, and that left a lot of room for everything else.

Like how calming Jo's breathing was. The way her brown hair framed her face perfectly, the way she wore her femininity so casually and so genuinely, in a way that Sabrina never could. Like how soft the woman's skin was as she stroked Bree's face. Like how nice it was to just lay and watch cartoons with no worries at all. Nothing was expected of her. Nothing was demanded of her.

She was the baby, and she was beginning to actually enjoy it, and the unexpected freedom it granted.

The day passed easily. Cartoons, Lila and Faith coloring, and a couple of diaper changes. Every Doll had seen her essentially naked at that point, it stopped meaning anything. There was no point in modesty anymore. There was no such thing as privacy.

When the time came for the movie, the princess held Court in the living room. Or rather, Kinsley did but they pretended like Lila was leading things. "Your Highness, we have to take the baby out of the huggy jacket if we're going to the movies. If we don't, someone's going to need to stay home to watch her. Can't leave a baby alone, it's very unsafe. What does the Princess want?"

Lila pondered for a moment, drinking from a sippy cup that she had royally demanded a while earlier, before giving her royal decree. Or rather, the question.

"What does the baby have to say for herself?"

Most eyes went to Bree, laying in Kinsley's lap on the couch, once again being fed an enormous bottle.

Gently, the blonde tried to redirect her. "Highness, she's far too young to answer for herself. It's your decision, should you want it - or I can make the choice for you."

"No!" Lila banged her sippy on the tray, the first bit of anything resembling negativity that anyone had seen that day - but then again, no one had been challenging Lila on anything at all, and Faith was occupied taking care of her while Jo was equally occupied taking care of Bree. "No, you won't, and I want to hear what the baby has to say."

The ability to be infantile and imperious was a gift no one but Lila could possess, and attention went back to Bree. Lips freed from the bottle, she thought about how she might answer. Lila had done this sort of thing many times in the past few days, a true challenge couched in a playful game.

There was a correct answer, and Bree could feel it.

Taking a breath, Bree answered. "Ba ba ba."

Erupting in laughter, the Dolls seemed to enjoy her response. Lila only laughed for a moment before banging the sippy on the tray of her highchair, demanding attention.

"The baby can go, but she's still a baby." Again, an order given subtly, mirthfully, but with a threat underneath it that Bree had learned all too well the other Dolls would enforce in the name of keeping their princess happy.

The pieces of the puzzle didn't fit together right, however. Trying made Bree's brain uncomfortable. Kinsley was in charge, Kinsley was at the top of the hierarchy, but a lot of the time it was Lila who gave the orders. Or was it? The blue-eyed leader of the Dolls would often prompt Lila, she had cowed the princess with threats in the past.

But Bree's mind went back to the one time she had seen the inside of Kinsley's room.

The spanking that hadn't landed despite the taller woman carrying on as though it had. And in the newfound peace of her forced silence, her lips once again filled with the bottle, she turned the puzzle over and over in her mind.

As she was lifted and carried back downstairs, off for yet another diaper change, she considered. Kinsley finished perforating the inner diaper, taping the outer one over her before unlocking the booties and beginning to unbuckle the straitjacket. Bree's muscles ached in a way that didn't make sense to her at first - they felt as though she had been carrying something heavy for hours on end, and when they were finally free, she heaved a sigh of relief, massaging them and working her jaw.

Her jaw ached from constantly nursing. Her muscles ached from being trapped and constricted, and Kinsley stepped close to her, placing a delicate hand on either of Bree's shoulders and looking down at her, there in Emmie's room that Bree had once thought might be her own - and might be again now that she was beginning to understand how the Dollhouse actually worked.

"I'm really, really happy at the way you've allowed yourself to be loved today." Tears attacked Bree's eyes, a lump appearing in her throat instantly. Kinsley pulled her in close, wrapping arms around her and giving a tight, loving hug. "I know, sugar. I know. You couldn't see how much it hurt before. I'm sorry and glad all at the same time. Sorry you hurt, glad you can see it because that means you can finally heal." Drawing back, she moved Bree again at arms length, looking down into her eyes. "We're going out tonight, we're going to watch the movie, probably hit a drive thru. You can talk any time people have to believe you're an adult, but we all know you're not, are you?"

Silently, Bree shook her head, feeling exceedingly naked and vulnerable standing here with her breasts exposed and wearing nothing but a thick diaper that she knew was already wet.

"You're not going to try and run away, you're not going to try and make things hard for us, your family, are you?"

It was bizarre now that she said it, but Bree hadn't even considered the opportunity of walking into the public theater and screaming for help, for someone to call the cops and rescue her from the insanity of her odd captivity. But it hadn't. The thought genuinely, truly hadn't occurred to her and she wasn't sure what to make of that.

Again, she shook her head.

"You're a good girl and I'm so proud of you." Those words. The cracks in Bree's soul ached at those words, at that love that was given so generously. Prior to coming to the Dollhouse, she had no idea how badly she needed to hear those very simple words. And she realized she loved Kinsley. She truly did. In a way that was beyond insane, the woman had saved her life and was still doing so as she gently, oh so gently, tended the bleeding wounds in Bree's psyche. And she realized that was the reason escape hadn't occurred to her.

She needed the Dolls. She belonged with the Dolls. She didn't even want to escape the diapers, even the jacket. She hadn't realized before how much comfort she found in those bonds, in her hands and feet being taken, in becoming so incredibly helpless and unfailingly cared for.

With the Dolls, she would never wake in the middle of the night to find herself completely alone.

She'd finally get the love she had needed as a child, now, far too late, but still so badly needed.

"I love you Mama." The words were whispered, but she meant them. Again Kinsley held her, pulled her into a hug tighter than the straitjacket could ever dream of, and Bree could feel an ache echo inside of Kinsley, a kindred pain. They were connected, not just in the othering of queerness, but something deeper. Something primordial.

Somehow, the squeeze increased for just a moment, enough that Bree thought that she might get a bone popped out of place, before Kinsley whispered back. "I love you too, sugar. Welcome to the Dollhouse."